The Christmas Invasion
by Laura Donaghey
Summary: It's Christmas Eve and high above London, the Sycorax are holding the Earth for ransom. The Tenth Doctor must recover from his regeneration in time to save the human race from slavery.
1. Chapter 1

As the strange man dashed around the console, flicking various switches and checking the monitor every so often, Rose watched warily from behind the pillar she had half concealed herself behind.

"6pm... Tuesday..." The man said, turning a knob. "October... 5006... On the way to Barcelona!" He straightened up and turned to face Rose, grinning as though he was extremely pleased with himself. "Now then... What do I look like?"

Rose didn't have a chance to reply. Almost immediately he held up a hand to silence her. "No, no no, no no no no no no no. No. Don't tell me." He said before proceeding to check each of his limbs in turn. "Let's see... two legs, two arms, two hands..." He took hold of his wrist, circling it. "Slight weakness in the dorsal tubercle." His hands quickly flew up to his head, his hands running through his thick spiky hair. "Hair! I'm not bald! Oh, oh! Big hair!"

The shock and confusion on Rose's face was plain to see. Who was this man? Where was the Doctor? He had said that he was dying and then he... Well, Rose didn't know what had happened after that.

The man in front of her didn't seem overly concerned by his sudden appearance nor Rose's dumbfounded state. He was still too preoccupied discovering the delights of his hair to notice. "Sideburns, I've got sideburns! Or really bad skin." He moved onto reviewing his slender frame. "Little bit thinner..." He muttered, slapping his stomach. "That's weird. Give me time, I'll get used to it."

Suddenly he stopped talking. Then, with the air of someone making a most wonderful discovery, he announced what he had found. "I... have got... a mole. I can feel it. Between my shoulder blades, there's a mole. That's all right. Love the mole."

Rose hadn't realised how heavily she'd been breathing. She felt scared, even more so as the stranger turned back to face her. "Go on then, tell me." He said, grinning at her. "What do you think?"

Rose didn't know what to say. He was completely mad and that was without thinking on the fact that he had quite literately stepped into the Doctor's shoes only a moment ago.

"Who are you?" She eventually asked, her voice quiet and timid.

The Doctor was surprised. Rose was always so bubbly and full of life, not afraid of anything or anyone. Looking slightly crestfallen he replied with the obvious.

"I'm the Doctor."

Rose shook her head firmly and stepped out from behind the pillar. She wasn't able to believe him and nor did she want to.

"No... Where is he? Where's the Doctor?" She demanded, her voice beginning to rise. "What have you done to him?"

"You saw me, I, I changed..." The Doctor trailed off and indicated over his shoulder at the spot where he'd regenerated. "...right in front of you."

"I saw him sort of explode, and then you replaced him, like a... a teleport or a transmat or a body swap or something."

The Doctor didn't interject. He was too lost for words and watched as Rose took a few hesitant steps towards him. At arm's length, she pushed him away a little. "You're not fooling me." She hissed.

Rocking back on his heels, the Doctor couldn't quite believe what he was hearing. Why wasn't Rose able to recognise him? He'd told her what was going to happen. She should be greeting him with that warm and bright smile that he had grown to love.

But no, Rose was instead glaring at him. Her arms were folded defiantly with Tyler stubbornness etched across her face. "I've seen all sorts of things. Nano genes... Gelth... Slitheen..." She gasped and backed away from him. "Oh, my God, are you a Slitheen?"

"I'm not a Slitheen." The Doctor calmly replied.

"Send him back." She demanded, shouting now. "I'm warning you. Send the Doctor back right now!"

"Rose, it's me." He told her gently as he leaned forward in his urgency to make her understand. "Honestly, it's me. I was dying. To save my own life I changed my body. Every single cell, but... It's still me."

"You can't be." She whispered.

Cautious of her temper rising again, the Doctor carefully closed the gap between them and met her eyes with his.

"Then how could I remember this?" He told her. "The very first word I ever said to you. Trapped in that cellar. Surrounded by shop window dummies... Oh..." He looked away for a moment, reminiscing. "Such a long time ago. I took your hand..." To emphasize his point, he took her hand in his own.

Rose glanced briefly down at their joint hands and then back up at his face. It was just like when she had first met the Doctor, the first time she had asked him who he was. "I said one word..." The Doctor continued. "Just one word, I said... 'Run'."

Gazing into his eyes, her own full of tears, Rose finally understood what had happened.

"Doctor." She whispered.

The Doctor grinned at her.

"Hello."

Rose let out the breath she hadn't realised she'd been holding and stumbled backwards as the impact of what had just happened hit her. The Doctor took off around to the other side of the console. "And we never stopped, did we? All across the universe. Running, running, running..." He flicked a few switches on the console. "One time we had to hop. Do you remember? Hopping for our lives."

Madly he began hopping up and down on the spot. Rose, with her back against the pillar, stood watching him. "Yeah? All that hopping? Remember hopping for your life? Yeah?! Hop? With the..." Seeing Rose's lack of a reaction, the Doctor's wild enthusiasm faded from his voice as his hopping subsided. "No?"

"Can you change back?" She asked, almost sounding afraid of the answer.

"Do you want me to?" He questioned.

"Yeah." She replied, a little too quickly. "Can you?"

"No." The Doctor told her, briefly glancing down at the floor in order to hide his disappointment. "Do you want to leave?"

Rose looked shocked.

"Do you want me to leave?"

"No!" He replied quickly. "But...your choice... If you want to go home." He traveled over to the console again. "Cancel Barcelona. Change to... London... The Powell Estate... Ah... Let's say the 24th of December." He looked up at her. "Consider it a Christmas present. There."

Rose slowly moved closer towards the console as the Doctor fiddled with the last of the controls. She stopped as he stepped back, his arms folded in an defensive manner. The TARDIS shuddered as it changed direction.

"I'm going home?" She asked.

"Up to you. Back to your mum... It's all waiting. Fish and chips, sausage and mash, beans on toast... No, Christmas! Turkey! Although...having met your mother... Nut loaf would be more appropriate."

Rose felt herself smiling and looked down quickly in an attempt to hide it. But the Doctor had already seen it. "Was that a smile?" He asked.

"No." Rose replied quickly.

"That was a smile..."

"No it wasn't."

"You smiled..." He continued to tease.

"No I didn't.

"Oh, come on, all I did was change, I didn't..."

The Doctor stopped dead, a spasm overcoming him as he began to gag. Simultaneously, the TARDIS shuddered as the console produced an unpleasant groaning and grinding noise.

Rose watched this with a frown.

"What?" She asked the Doctor, already sensing something wasn't right.

"I said I didn't..." It happened again, this time more violently. He began making nasty retching noises. "Uh oh."

Cautiously, Rose edged around the console.

"Er... Are you all right?"

The cloud of golden vapour that spilled out of the Doctor's mouth was unlike anything Rose had ever seen before. It trailed as a wisp in the air for a brief shining moment before fading away.

"Oh..." The Doctor said. "The change is going a bit wrong."

He gagged again, falling to his knees. His face suddenly contorted.

"Look..." Rose told him. "Maybe we should go back. Let's go and find Captain Jack, he'll know what to do."

"Gah, he's busy!" The Doctor said impatiently. "He's got plenty to do rebuilding the Earth!" A lever on the console suddenly caught his eye. Grinning, he ran over to it. "I haven't used this one in years."

The TARDIS protested from the moment he shoved it downwards and shook with such violence that the Doctor and Rose were nearly knocked off of their feet.

"What're you doing!?" Rose shouted.

"Putting on a bit of speed!" The Doctor called back crazily. "That's it! My beautiful ship! Come on, faster! That's a girl! Faster! Wanna break the time limit?!"

"Stop it!" She screamed at him.

"Ah, don't be so dull." He replied, almost nastily. "Let's have a bit of fun! Let's rip through that vortex!" He caught her eye for a moment. His voice normalised just for a second. "The regeneration's going wrong. I can't stop myself." He grimaced in pain. "Ah, my head!"

Violently the Doctor sprang up into a standing position, his voice having returned to one of a madman. "Faster! Let's open those engines!"

A loud bell began ringing. Rose looked around, frightened and terrified.

"What's that?" She asked.

The Doctor's face appeared next to hers.

"We're gonna crash land!" He laughed manically, sounding delighted.

"Well then, do something!" She shouted back over the din of the ringing bell.

"Too late! Out of control!" He cried back hysterically, giggling as he ran around the console. He hopped up and down excitedly. "Oh, I love it! Hot dawg!"

"You're gonna kill us!"

"Hold on tight, here we go! Christmas Eve!"


	2. Chapter 2

Having hung the last bauble on the Christmas tree, Jackie Tyler had already placed the majority of the presents underneath it. The last two were on the coffee table behind her.

Both had been carefully wrapped in bright and festive paper. The first had come courtesy of Mickey and was large and rounded in shape. Jackie suspected that it was a jumper. The second gift had been bought only a few days before and the stiff cardboard material of the rectangular box beneath the paper could easily be felt.

But this present wasn't for Jackie.

Taking it in her hands and sitting down on the sofa with it, she gazed wistfully out of the living room window. Her fingers briefly brushed over the label, which read:

To Rose. Merry Christmas. Lots of Love Mum X.

It had been nearly three months now. Three whole months since Rose Tyler had arrived back on the Powell Estate in the Doctor's time traveling ship, the TARDIS.

On the outside it looked like a big blue wooden police box. But, like its owner, the TARDIS was a lot more than what was presented. Inside was an entirely different story. It was alien.

But, this time, the Doctor had not traveled with his ship and Rose. He was no where to be seen, no where to be found. He had sent the TARDIS and his companion back to Earth without him.

Rose had been utterly devastated. Nothing her part-time boyfriend, Mickey Smith, or Jackie could do or say made a difference. The truth was she was stuck in the one place she didn't want to be anymore. Earth. Home, where the prospect of an uneventful, alien-free life, felt like a prison sentence.

Secretly, Jackie had been glad that Rose was back and didn't look to be going anywhere anytime soon. Though it was crushing to see her daughter in such a state, it was a relief that she was home again. None of the monsters or vile creatures she'd met could harm her now, and Jackie was immensely grateful to the Doctor for this. As much as she hated the Time Lord, he had kept his promise. He had kept Rose safe and sent her home.

But Rose's determination had been greatly underestimated.

Jackie had been on the receiving end of Rose's stubbornness for years, but even she had been surprised by how far her daughter had been prepared to go in order to return to the Doctor's side. From the moment she had arrived Rose had thought and talked of nothing else but transporting herself thousands of years into the future and straight into the heart of...

Well, Jackie didn't exactly know what the Doctor had sent Rose away from. All she knew was that it must have been bad, really really bad, for the Doctor to have sent Rose and the TARDIS away.

But Jackie knew her daughter. She knew that if Rose set her mind on something she would do it, and nothing on Earth - or more correctly, the universe - was going to stop her.

The very heart of the TARDIS had been torn out into the open in order to send Rose back.

It was something Jackie would never forget. The sight of the blue box disappearing from right in front of her, blinding golden light pouring out of its windows.

Then it and Rose were gone.

Once again, Jackie and Mickey had been left to get on with their ordinary human lives, hoping that Rose would return one day soon, safe and sound.

Part of that ordinary human life for Mickey was his work. He was a mechanic at Clancy's garage alongside two other men, Steve and John. Though only a small garage on the edge of the estate, it was never without work. Today there was just one car in, but it's dilapidated condition had meant that all three mechanics had come in.

Noddy Holder was screaming out 'Merry Christmas' on the radio as John rhythmically hammered away at the workstation at the back of the garage. Steve's drilling only added to the already noisy work environment. But they and Mickey were use to it.

So when the faint, almost none existent, whooshing noise rose up above the radio and the work of the mechanics, it was paid very little attention. Just another noise to add to the mechanical melody of sounds that the garage produced everyday.

But, as he noticed it for the first time, Mickey realised that he knew the strange noise.

"Hey, turn that down." He called to Steve. "Turn it off, Stevo. Turn that off! John, shut up!"

With a frown, Steve stopped drilling and turned down the radio as John stopped hammering. They watched as Mickey wondered over to the garage's entrance, transfixed by the peculiar wheezing and grinding sound coming from somewhere near the estate.

Grinning, Mickey didn't hesitate in downing his tools as he bolted from the garage. Nothing else in the universe made a sound quite like the TARDIS did when it was about to land. This meant only one thing.

Rose had come home.

The sky overhead was grey and overcast, but they remained free of the TARDIS as Mickey reached the centre of the Powell Estate. Despite the sound of its engines reverberating all around, the blue box was failing to make its normal instantaneous appearance.

"Mickey!"

Jackie Tyler came running out of her block of flats, her arms waving and flapping wildly with excitement. She had heard the TARDIS from her flat and had known at once that it was her daughter coming home, just in time for Christmas.

"Jackie, it's the Tardis!" Mickey called back, running to meet her.

"I know, I know, I heard it." She shouted, grabbing hold of his arm and gripping it painfully tight. "She's alive, Mickey. I said so, didn't I? She's alive!"

"Shush. Just shut up a minute."

The TARDIS still hadn't appeared. It was definitely coming, so why was it taking so long to arrive?

"Well, where is it then?" Jackie asked, her excitement dulling a little as impatience began to set in.

There was a deafening crack as if a bolt of lightning had just thundered across the sky. The TARDIS followed a moment later as it jumped out of the time vortex and into existence. Traveling so fast that the trails of blue energy that had followed it out hadn't even begun to fade, it crashed into one of the blocks of flats before bouncing off and hitting another. It hit another, then another as though it were a ball trapped in a pinball machine.

Jackie screamed as she and Mickey dove to the ground as the TARDIS passed over them with only inches to spare as it looked to lose control of its altitude.

The driver of a passing Royal Mail van was forced to slam on the brakes as the ship scraped along its bonnet on its way to crashing one final time into the side of a set of industrial waste bins in the corner of the nearest block of flats.

Finally it had stopped.

Steaming and hissing like an angry boiler, in a matter of seconds the TARDIS had almost caused several serious accidents and major damage to both the people and property of the estate.

Oblivious to this, the Doctor swung open the door of the TARDIS and strode out, taking in a lungful of air.

"Here we are then, London. Earth. The Solar System. We did it." He announced a moment before he almost backed into Jackie and Mickey. "Jackie. Mickey. Blimey!" He jumped away from them, pointing a finger. "No, no, no, no, hold on. Wait there. I've got something to say. There was something I had to tell you, something important. What was it? No, hold on, hold on. Hold on, shush, shush, shush, shush."

Jackie and Mickey watched, their mouths agape, as a man that neither had seen before circled around them and leaned against each of their shoulders, as though unable to keep his balance without their support. "Oh, I know!" He shouted into their faces. "Merry Christmas!"

That was when he collapsed.

Rose emerged from the TARDIS just in time to see her mother and Mickey lowering the Doctor as carefully as they could onto the ground.

"What happened?" She asked, running over. "Is he all right?"

"I don't know, he just keeled over." Mickey told her. "But who is he? Where's the Doctor?"

Rose stiffened. She felt a lump in her throat and swallowed hard.

"That's him, right in front of you. That's the Doctor."

"What do you mean, that's the Doctor?" Jackie asked, looking down at the stranger at their feet. "Doctor who?"

* * *

Despite his slender frame, it had taken both Jackie and Mickey to carry the Doctor up to the flat. Rose had helped them whenever they'd struggled and had held open both the front door of the flat and that of Jackie's bedroom, where they had carefully laid him on the bed.

Jackie had managed to produce a pair of men's stripy pyjamas and carefully, with some difficulty, they had changed the Doctor into them and tucked him into bed. It was then that Mickey had disappeared back to his flat in order to collect a few necessities whilst Jackie had gone in search of a stethoscope that she had claimed to have.

This left Rose alone with the Doctor.

Sitting at his side, staring at his new and completely unrecognisable face, she couldn't quite believe it was the same man. Was it though? He may be the Doctor, but was he still her Doctor?

"Here we go." Jackie said, returning to the room with the promised stethoscope, interrupting Rose's thoughts. "Tina the cleaner's got this lodger, a medical student, and she was fast asleep, so I just took it." She briefly glanced down at the Doctor. "Though I still say we should take him to hospital."

"We can't." Rose told her, putting the buds of the stethoscope in her ears. "They'd lock him up. They'd dissect him. One bottle of his blood could change the future of the human race. No! Shush!" She quickly added before her mother could protest.

Carefully Rose then leaned over the Doctor and listened to his heart. Satisfied that it was beating healthily enough she slid the plate of the stethoscope over to the other side of his chest and listened to the other one. "Both working." She sighed with relief.

Jackie stared at her daughter.

"What do you mean, both?" She asked.

"Well, he's got two hearts." Rose replied as though it was obvious.

"Oh, don't be stupid." Jackie scalded.

"He has." Rose insisted as she got up to leave the room.

Not missing a beat, Jackie made a more studied observation of the Doctor's physique.

"Anything else he's got two of?" She asked, slowly following after her daughter.

"Leave him alone." Rose quickly warned, knowing all too well her mother's intentions.

It couldn't have been more than ten seconds after Rose and Jackie leaving the bedroom that the Doctor unconsciously exhaled another cloud of golden vapour.

Traveling through the glass of the bedroom window, the shimmering wisp of light lingered longer that the previous one had. This one also seemed to know where it wanted to go as it shot up into the sky.

In just a few short minutes it was leaving the Earth as it traveled off into deep dark space.

As Rose investigated the fridge to see what there was to eat, Jackie continued her interrogation.

"How can he go changing his face? Is that a different face or is he a different person?" She asked.

"How should I know?" Rose snapped, immediately regretting it. "Sorry."

She hadn't meant to shout but the topic was a sensitive one. Jackie was only voicing the fears and worries that were plaguing Rose's thoughts. Finding herself tearing up, she fought to keep her voice steady. "The thing is, I thought I knew him, Mum. I thought me and him were... And then he goes and does this." She took a deep breath. "I keep forgetting he's not human."

Her mother was staring at her sympathetically which made Rose feel as though she might start crying at any moment, so she changed the subject. "The big question is... Where'd you get a pair of men's pyjamas from?"

Jackie hesitated briefly and suddenly decided to make a start on the washing up.

"Howard's been staying over." She replied casually over her shoulder.

"What, Howard from the market? How long's that been going on?"

Rose was use to her mother's many flings but it was still a surprise whenever one grew serious, however briefly it would last.

"A month or so." Jackie said, shrugging. "First of all, he starts delivering to the door and I thought, that's a odd. Next thing you know, it's a bag of oranges..."

But Rose was no longer listening. She had seen the television in the living room through the kitchen hatch and, more importantly, who was currently on it.

"Is that Harriet Jones?" She asked, dashing into the living room.

"Oh, never mind me." Jackie muttered, following her.

"Why's she on the telly?"

"She's Prime Minister now." Jackie told her. "I'm eighteen quid a week better off. They're calling it Britain's Golden Age. I keep on saying my Rose has met her."

"Did more than that." Rose replied, beaming at her one time ally. "Stopped World War Three with her. Harriet Jones."

The woman who had helped her and the Doctor stop the Slitheen from blowing up the Earth - by consequently blowing up Downing Street in the process - was stood behind a podium addressing a packed press conference. Two large Union Flags had been placed at each side of her to emphasise the state of importance about the topic they were discussing.

The gathered journalists and press could only just be seen at the bottom of the screen, each raising his or her hand feverishly at the appropriate moment in the hope of getting their questions answered.

"Prime Minister, what about those calling the Guinevere One space probe a waste of money?" One man asked.

"Now, that's where you're wrong. I completely disagree if you don't mind." Harriet replied. "The Guinevere One space probe represents this country's limitless ambition. British workmanship sailing up there among the stars."

The image cut to earlier footage of the press conference when the project's leader, Daniel Llewellyn, had been speaking.

He was a thin man, small and timid, with a completely bald head and a contrastingly bushy dark brown beard. He had a distinctly welsh accent when he spoke, with the tone of someone tremendously excited.

"This is the spirit of Christmas, birth and rejoicing, and the dawn of a new age, and that is what we're achieving fifteen million miles away. Our very own miracle!"

The news report cut to a graphical representation of Guinevere One's intended flight path as the news reporter explained what was happening.

"The unmanned probe Guinevere One is about to make it's final descent. Photographs of the Martian Landscape should be received by midnight tonight."

Out in the deep darkness of space, the real Guinevere One was traveling along its specially programmed flight path.

But neither it, nor its programers had predicted the colossal chunk of rock that had drifted into its way. The probe bounced off the vast structure and began to aimlessly drift away, its sensors and computers having all been misaligned. Then a hatched opened up close to the bottom of the rock face, a warm orange glow emitting from its core.

Guinevere One was sucked inside.


	3. Chapter 3

As night had fallen over London, Rose had come to realise that sitting at the Doctor's bedside wasn't going to make him wake up any more quickly. So, Mickey had suggested they go out and visit the local Christmas market.

A brass band dressed in Santa robes were playing 'God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen' around the large Christmas tree that had been erected in the centre of the market, as hundreds of people enjoyed some last minute Christmas shopping and the festive atmosphere.

"So what do you need? Twenty quid?" Mickey asked, pulling out a small bundle of notes.

"Do you mind?" Rose asked, accepting one. "I'll pay you back."

"Call it a Christmas present." He chuckled.

"God, I'm all out of synch." Rose said suddenly. "You just forget about Christmas and things in the TARDIS. They don't exist. You get sort of timeless."

Mickey rolled his eyes, his tone sarcastic.

"Oh, yeah, that's fascinating, because I love hearing stories about the TARDIS. Oh, go on Rose, tell us another one because I swear I could listen to it all day. TARDIS this, TARDIS that."

"Shut up." Rose told him playfully.

"Oh, and one time the TARDIS landed in a big yellow garden full of balloons." Mickey teased.

"I'm not like that!"

"Oh, you so are."

"Mmm, must drive you mad." Rose said. "I'm surprised you don't give up on me."

"Oh that's the thing, isn't it? You can rely on me. I don't go changing my face."

"Yeah." Rose said quietly, coming to a halt. Before she could stop herself, she asked the question she was fearing the answer to. "What if he's dying?"

Mickey had finally had enough of the topic and turned to leave.

"Okay..."

"Sorry!" Rose said quickly, grabbing his arm to stop him. Mickey took her arms in his.

"Just let it be Christmas." He pleaded. "Can you do that? Just for a bit. You and me and Christmas. No Doctor, no bog monsters, no life or death."

"Okay."

"Promise?" He asked.

"Yes!" Rose said exasperatingly.

"Right!" Mickey said as they started walking again. "What're you going to get for your mum? I'm round there all the time now, you know. She does my dinner on a Sunday, talks about you all afternoon..."

Rose only half listened as Mickey talked on and on about ordinary things and ordinary people. Had she really cared about this stuff before meeting the Doctor? It all sounded so boring. But, at the same time it was amazing. All these people, going about their daily lives, planning and preparing everything that was important to them.

Life in the TARDIS could never offer her that. It was impulsive, mad and completely unpredictable.

Shaking her head, Rose turned her attention to the brass band. They were all wearing full face Santa masks and... Wait, full face masks? How were they even able to play their instruments? Rose couldn't see mouth or eye holes. Also, were they following them? Each time Rose looked over at them they appeared to be getting closer.

Was she just being paranoid? It was just a brass band after all. It was just a brass band playing at Christmas market. Just, that word. Just. That was how everyone around Rose saw the world, with logic and reason. But in the Doctor's world nothing was never just anything.

The brass band had stopped playing. Each of them were stood in line with one another, their instruments held at chest height. Rose stopped and stared at them. It was as though the entire world had stopped with her.

Then it was thrown into chaos.

Fire erupted from the trombone, causing instant panic. As the terrified shoppers fled in all directions, Rose and Mickey found shelter behind a stall.

"It's us! They're after us!" Rose realised.

The trombonist found them again and they were forced to flee as fire and shots from the smaller instruments followed after them, one of the stalls exploding in a shower of sparks as it took a direct hit.

As Rose and Mickey used the Christmas tree as a shield between them and the band, there was a colossal bang. The tuba had fired one huge blast, with the intention of slicing through the tree and on to its targets.

But the tree was tougher than it looked. The impact had only damaged half of the trunk, causing it to tumble towards the band member.

Rose and Mickey were already long gone as the metallic mask crashed to the ground and clattered to a stop. The rest of the band that had cause so much chaos and destruction were no where to be found.

"What's going on?" Mickey asked as they ran. "What've we done? Why are they after us?"

"Taxi!" Rose shouted, flagging a passing black cab down.

She gasped out the address of the Powell Estate to the driver as they dove inside and, only as it drove away, were they able to catch their breaths. "They're after the Doctor."

"I can't even go shopping with you and we get attacked by a brass band." Mickey said breathlessly. "Who're you phoning?" He asked, seeing Rose pull out her mobile phone.

"My mum." She replied.

Dialling the number, however, and putting the phone to her ear, all Rose got was an engaged dial up tone and that annoying voice message telling her that the line was busy.

* * *

Jackie had taken the opportunity of having an empty flat - the Doctor was unconscious so he didn't really count - and had done some last minute decorating.

A new Christmas tree had been delivered to the door, no doubt from Rose as she was out shopping, so Jackie had taken down the old white plastic tree and replaced it with the new, larger green fibreglass one. Then her friend Bev had phoned.

"She turns up, no warning. I've got nothing in. I said, Rose, if you want a Christmas dinner of meat paste, then so be it." She nattered as she brought in a cup of tea for the Doctor. "Oh, no. Don't come round, darling. No, the flat's all topsy turvy. Yeah, she just barges in and litters the place. Yeah. No, I'll come round and see you on Boxing day."

Leaving it at the side of his bed, Jackie left the room a moment too soon to see the Doctor exhale another cloud of golden vapour.

"Get off the phone!" Rose shouted as she once again was unable to get through to her mother.

"Who were those Santa things?" Mickey asked.

"I don't know. But think about it." She told him. "They were after us. What's important about us? Well, nothing, except the one thing we've got tucked up in bed. The Doctor."

They burst into Jackie's flat the moment they reached it. Jackie was still on the phone to Bev.

"So, save us a chipolata." She was saying.

"Get off the phone!" Rose shouted as she ran into the living room.

"It's only Bev. She says hello." Jackie replied, tutting when Rose snatched the phone off her.

"Bev? Yeah, look, it'll have to wait." Rose said, hanging up the phone before turning back to Jackie and Mickey. "Right, it's not safe. We've got to get out. Where can we go?"

"My mate Stan, he'll put us up." Mickey suggested.

"That's only two streets away." Rose told him, looking to Jackie. "What about Mo? Where's she living now?"

"I don't know. Peak District."

"Well, we'll go to cousin Mo's then."

"No, it's Christmas Eve!" Jackie suddenly snapped, rounding on them both. "We're not going anywhere! What're you babbling about?"

"Mum..." Rose began but stopped when she saw it. "Where'd you get that tree?"

The new Christmas tree stood innocently in the corner of the living room where the old one had stood. Jackie had decorated and replaced the presents back underneath. Rose noticed it was much larger than the old tree and it was green, not white. "That's a new tree. Where'd you get it?"

"I thought it was you." Jackie told her.

"How can it be me?"

"Well, you went shopping. There was a ring at the door, and there it was!"

"No, that wasn't me." Rose insisted.

"Then who was it?" Jackie asked quietly, all three of them now staring at the tree.

Completely on their own, the tree's lights lit up, as 'Jingle Bells' began playing from somewhere inside it.

"Oh, you're kidding me." Rose groaned.

Sections of the tree began to rotate in different directions, creating a strong gust of wind as it picked up speed. Momentarily hindered as it separated itself from the wire tethering it to the plug socket, it began to advance towards them. There was a ear splitting splintering sound as it sliced through the coffee table, reducing it to splinters in mere seconds.

"Get out! Go, go! Get out!" Mickey shouted, pushing Jackie and Rose out of the living room and picking up one of the dining chairs to fend off the tree.

"Running towards the front door, Rose quickly diverted and dove into Jackie's bedroom and to the Doctor's side.

"We've got to save the Doctor." She called.

"What're you doing?" Jackie shouted from the doorway.

"We can't just leave him."

"Mickey!" Jackie called, looking back towards the living room.

The tree was shredding the chair legs and Mickey was struggling to keep hold as it jerked and jolted. "Leave it! Get out! Get out!"

"Mickey!" Rose shouted.

"Get out of there!" Jackie added.

Abandoning what remained of the chair, Mickey ran after them. "No, leave him. Just leave him!" Jackie shouted as he dove into her bedroom to help Rose move the Doctor.

"Get in here!" He told her.

With a scream Jackie ran into her bedroom, just as the tree smashed through the living room's glass partition wall, and bolted the door behind her. She and Mickey them pulled the wardrobe across the door as Rose tried to rouse the Doctor.

"Doctor, wake up!" She shouted.

Running over to the Doctor's jacket that had been slung over the edge of the bed, Rose rummaged through the pockets until she found the sonic screwdriver.

Putting it in his hand, she stepped back and waited.

Nothing. No reaction at all.

CRASH! The tree smashed straight through the door and the wardrobe and into the room.

"I'm going to get killed by a Christmas tree!" Jackie squealed, cowering in the far corner.

Desperate and almost out of time, Rose did the only thing she could think of doing. Leaning down, she whispered into the Doctor's ear.

"Help me."

The Doctor sat up and aimed the sonic screwdriver at the advancing tree. It exploded a moment later, leaving only scraps of tinsel and fibreglass shavings behind.

"Remote control." The Doctor said quietly. "But who's controlling it?"

He sprang out of bed, snatching a dressing gown on his way out of the room.

Dressing gown now on, he led Rose, Jackie, and Mickey outside. Down on the ground, three of the Santas from the market gazed up at them. One was holding a radio controller.

"That's them. What are they?" Mickey asked.

"Shush!" Rose said, seeing the look of concentration on the Doctor's face.

The Time Lord aimed the sonic screwdriver at them and the Santas took a step back. Enveloped in a bright blue light, all three transported away as the light shot up into the sky.

"They've just gone." Mickey scoffed. "What kind of rubbish were they? I mean, no offence, but they're not much cop if a sonic screwdriver's going to scare them off."

"Pilot fish." The Doctor said quietly.

"What?" Rose asked.

"They were just pilot fish."

Suddenly the Doctor's face contorted in pain. He doubled over and was forced to use the safety barrier in front of him for support. Sitting down on the ground with his back to it, the others all crouched down besides him.

"What's wrong?" Rose asked.

"You woke me up too soon. I'm still regenerating. I'm bursting with energy." He exhaled a cloud of golden vapour. "You see? The pilot fish could smell it, a million miles away. So they eliminate the defence, that's you lot, and they carry me off. They could run their batteries on me for a couple of, ow!"

"Oh! Oh! Oh!" Jackie gasped as the Doctor clung to her arm.

"My head!" He hissed. "I'm having a neuron implosion. I need -"

"What do you need?" She cut in.

"I need -"

"Say it. Tell me, tell me, tell me."

"I need -" The Doctor was trying to tell her, but it was impossible to get a word in edgeways.

"Painkillers?" Jackie asked.

"I need -"

"Do you need aspirin?"

"I need -"

"Codeine? Paracetamol? Oh, I don't know, Pepto-Bismol?"

"I need -"

"Liquid paraffin. Vitamin C? Vitamin D? Vitamin E?"

"I need -"

"Is it food? Something simple. Bowl of soup. A nice bowl of soup? Soup and a sandwich? Soup and a little ham sandwich?" Jackie gabbled.

"I need you to shut up." The Doctor told her at last, shakily regaining his feet.

"Oh, he hasn't changed that much, has he?" She said to Rose, a little insulted.

"We haven't got much time. If there's pilot fish, then..." The Doctor stopped as he pulled out an apple out of his dressing gown pocket. "Why's there an apple in my dressing gown?"

"Oh, that's Howard. Sorry." Jackie told him.

"He keeps apples in his dressing gown?"

"He gets hungry." She said with a shrug.

"What, he gets hungry in his sleep?"

"Sometimes."

"Before the Doctor could respond to this, he jerked and doubled over again, falling against the wall of the flat and sliding down to the ground.

"Argh! Brain collapsing." He grabbed Rose's arm and pulled her in close, looking her in the eye. "The pilot fish. The pilot fish mean that something... something... something is coming."

Then he passed out.


	4. Chapter 4

Putting the suffering Doctor back to bed, Rose did her best to mop his brow and bring his rocketing temperature back down. Mickey had brought his laptop back with him from his flat and stood lingering in the ruined doorway, watching her before taking it into the living room and plugging it into the landline.

"Jackie, I'm using the phone line. Is that all right?"

"Yeah. Keep a count of it." She said, bringing in three cups of tea and handing him one. "It's midnight. Christmas day." She realised, just as Rose came into the living room. "Any change?"

"He's worse." Rose replied, shaking her head. "Just one heart beating."

The news coverage of Guinevere One's landing was still running on the television.

"Scientists in charge of Britain's mission to Mars have re-established contact with the Guinevere One space probe. They're expecting the first transmission from the planet's surface in the next few minutes." The news reporter announced.

The image then cut to the live press conference where Llewellyn was answering a flurry of questions.

"Yes, we are." He answered, sounding very flustered. "We're back on schedule. We've received the signal from Guinevere One. The Mars landing would seem to be an unqualified success."

"But is it true that you completely lost contact earlier tonight?" One reporter asked.

"Yes, we had a bit of a scare. Guinevere seemed to fall off the scope, but it, it was just a blip. Only disappeared for a few seconds." Llewellyn insisted. "She is fine now, absolutely fine. We're getting the first pictures transmitted live any minute now. I'd better get back to it, thanks."

Ignoring the calling journalists with their many unanswered questions, Llewellyn dashed out of the press conference.

"Here we go, pilot fish." Mickey said, turning Rose's attention to his laptop screen. "Scavengers, like the Doctor said. Harmless. They're tiny. But the point is, the little fish swim alongside the big fish."

The screen was showing a graphical school of fish swimming alongside a larger fish.

"Do you mean like sharks?" Rose asked.

"Great big sharks. So, what the Doctor means is, we had them, now we get that."

A huge shark swam into view, scattering the other fish. Menacingly, it bared its razor sharp teeth at them as it tore past.

"Something is coming." Rose echoed. "How close?"

"There's no way of telling, but the pilot fish don't swim far from their daddy."

"So, it's close?"

"Funny sort of rocks." Jackie commented.

The news report had cut to the live pictures of the Martian landscape. The image was at first nothing but static, but slowly it was beginning to focus.

"That's not rocks." Rose realised at once.

"She had seen too much, knew too much to know the difference between rocks and a face.

"This image is being transmitted via mission control, coming live from the depths of space on Christmas morning." The news reporter said.

As the image cleared properly, the red-eyed ugly alien, with a head like a cow's skull, lunged towards the camera with a threatening growl.

The signal cut out.

The news of an alien appearing on live television traveled across the world very quickly.

"The face of an alien life form was transmitted live tonight on BBC1." The BBC reported.

"On the 25th of December, the human race has been shown absolute proof that alien life exists." Announced the US news channel AMNN.

"These remarkable images have been relayed right across the world." Delhi's national news reported.

The cortege of black cars drove swiftly into the Tower of London. Consisting of one Jaguar between two Range Rovers, they came to a halt directly in front of the main entrance of the White Tower.

Major Richard Blake was already in place to greet the cortege. He was a tall, dark skinned man, with a rounded bald head and a hard, serious face. The British Army number two dress uniform he wore was immaculate. The UNIT insignia badge on the left side of his jacket clearly visible.

Two privates followed him, each wearing an all-black combat uniform, with scarlet berets. Both were cradling M4A1 assault rifles and both knew how to use them.

Neither they nor their superior blinked as Daniel Llewellyn stepped out of the Jaguar. With a nervous fiddling of his tie the man looked all around him, perhaps wondering why he had been summoned to this place and by whom. He only took notice of Major Blake and the two soldiers when the major stepped forward to address him.

"This way, sir." Major Blake told him, indicating Llewellyn should enter the White Tower.

Nodding, Llewellyn allowed himself to be escorted inside.

The White Tower extended far further underground than where any tourist would ever visit. Far below the ancient rooms once used as both a palace and as a prison was the beating heart of the Unified Intelligence Task Force's UK operation. Basement number 11.

The only sign that the control room was located in one of the worlds best know historical landmarks were the stone walls. Even those had been taken over, with the wall at the head of the room covered by a large screen. In front of which, dozens of workstations with equally complicated and technical screens and machinery covering every possible surface were being manned by both soldiers and civilians.

Llewellyn could not help but stop and stare at the operation around him, the focus of which looked to be surrounding the image on the large screen. It was showing Earth with something registering not to far away from it. A signal? A satellite? Guinevere one? Llewellyn only knew what was now being reported on the news. It was the only possible reason to why he was here.

What business did he have with a military base? With aliens and intelligence operations? Whatever was going on, whoever these people were, they were intently focused on their work but not quite in a panicked sense. They hadn't reached that point at least. Not yet, anyway. "Mister Llewellyn."

Major Blake was indicating he should follow him again, towards the offices and quieter rooms at the opposite end of the basement.

* * *

Sergeant Stefan Amell didn't even look down at the folders as they were handed to him. Marked 'Classified', they were not for the eyes of soldiers. The only people on the base allowed to even think about reading the reports inside were the officers, those in command of each detachment who had all put themselves through Sandhurst's gruelling commissioning training to gain the privilege.

Luckily, Stefan's commanding officer was also his best friend. He would get a summary of the report regardless.

It wasn't special treatment. The entire of Broadsword 42 had access where other detachments didn't. It was one of three Intelligence Wing and Special Ops divisions based at the Tower. The six man unit had been monitoring Guinevere One's journey, just like they did with any civilian space mission. It wasn't that they were interested in the project itself, it was just in case the probe encountered anything else apart from the Martian landscape.

It had. Whatever these creatures were, they had binned all other operations and any chance of anyone getting home for Christmas.

But the folders in Stefan's hand didn't have anything to do with Guinevere One, or the red eyed aliens who had found it. Reports of a strange incident in nearby Peckham had been sent in for investigation. Of course, this had been before the signal hijack, but given the closeness time-wise between the two incidences, UNIT had kept their eye on it.

Stefan saw Major Blake was heading his way, a small, bearded man he recognised from the news as Daniel Llewellyn in tow.

Like he would with any officer, and certainly with the head of the base, Stefan sharply stepped aside and stood to attention.

"Sir." He acknowledged, saluting.

Major Blake shot him a curt nod as he and Llewellyn passed. His expression gave nothing away, just like any good soldier, but his eyes told Stefan the gravity of the situation they were all now facing.

Not half an hour ago, the Prime Minister had been ushered in.

Whatever was going on, those in command were getting worried. They were getting worried for the lack of further communication from the aliens, worried by what their intentions were, worried about where they were now.

Stefan all but threw the folders he'd been carrying down in front of his commanding officer. "What do you get when you combine Christmas, a market, and a bunch of fire spouting, brass band playing Santas?"

"The beginnings of a very bad joke."

Spinning around in his chair, Lieutenant Peter Argent shot his best friend a lopsided grin.

Like Stefan, he was twenty one years old and still had traces of a Kentish dialect in his voice, despite the three years since moving to London. They'd known each other since primary school and were as close as brothers. Physically, however, they were quite different.

Whilst Stefan was slender, with a boyish but attractive face, and had fair hair and bright green eyes, Peter was taller with a much wider jawline and a strong, toned frame. There was no doubt that he was amongst the strongest on the base, if not the strongest, but he advantageously had speed and skill too. He didn't appear to be European, despite having been raised on the outskirts of Maidstone and had suntanned skin, black ruffled hair, a toothy but warm grin, and contrastingly bright grey eyes.

But underneath it all, Peter had a secret. It was his greatest fear that he'd be found out, that he'd give himself away. Only four people apart from himself knew what it was and that was only because they could be trusted. Stefan was one of those people and, rather than drive a wedge between them, it had only strengthened their friendship further.

Right now, however, Peter was more concerned with the folders that had just landed in front of him. Looking at them as if they might bite him, he turned back to Stefan with a raised eyebrow. "Do I have to read them?" He whined

"I know that you're allergic to paperwork boss." Stefan began. "But Captain Roberts wants us to approve whatever's inside and sign them off."

With a groan, Peter opened up the first of the folders and glanced over the report. Stefan waited patiently as the other folders were read in similar fashion. "Well?" He asked when Peter had finished. "What's it say?"

Another response cut Peter off before he could reply.

"Nothing for your ears, Amell." Said the cold, drawling and surprisingly loud voice of Second Lieutenant Eugene Kensington, cutting through the air like a piece of chalk on a blackboard.

At twenty five he was the eldest in the unit, but had only just scraped through his Sandhurst training. Despite coming from a high ranking military family - one that could even boast aristocratical connections - he was weedy and small with a thin face and a pointed chin. His green eyes were cold and dull whilst his blond hair was already starting to thin.

Kensington was also a grade A Rupert. He treated anyone below him in both rank and class as though they were inferior, but simultaneously expected respect from them.

Peter hated him for it.

"Well, would you rather I send my team in blind because they're not allowed to be told anything?" He asked pointedly.

Kensington's jawline tensed.

"Protocol dictates, sir, that -"

"Protocol also dictates that I have a duty of care to my men and, as much as I don't want it, to you Kensington." Peter retorted, throwing him the folders. "Read them yourself if you want to. They don't say anything. Brass band when on a rampage, no fatalities or major injuries nor any considerable damage. No evidence of a foreign presence."

Kensington quickly checked the reports for himself and then straightened.

For a moment he locked eyes with his commanding officer. He quickly backed down. Peter's stare was like no one else's, two grey orbs that were bold enough in colour to be seen across the room. There was something both captivating and dangerous about it, feral and wild like an animal's. Command was there too, steady and regal command that could make anyone listen and obey no matter how much you hated him.

"I'll pass the information on then, sir." Kensington muttered in response.

"See that you do. Then go and see Captain Roberts, tell him I approve the reports." Peter told him.

Once Kensington was gone, Stefan sat down at the workstation so he could continue monitoring the incoming signal. Peter didn't even have to ask to guess the reports were not the only news.

"The major was bringing in Daniel Llewellyn as I was coming down. I think to meet with the Prime Minister." Stefan told him.

"The project manager?" Peter asked. "What good can he do?"

Stefan shrugged.

"Don't know, but the major looked tense."

"The major always looks tense." Peter countered. Then, he smiled, nodding in the direction of the boardroom. "Want to find out what's going on?"

Stefan looked at him and then to where he was indicating.

"Just because you can hear that far doesn't give you a free pass into private and classified conversations."

"So you don't want to find out?" Peter asked, grinning.

Stefan sighed and gave up trying to get any work done.

"Fine." He said. "But try to look like you're part of the human race while you're doing it."

"It's not my fault you lot are deaf." Peter shrugged as he took out his earpiece.

"Yeah, I'm ignoring the 'you lot' part only because I want to know what's going on up there."

"And did I mention nosy? You lot are very very nosy too." Peter faltered under the look Stefan gave him. "I'll just start listening in then, shall I?" He asked, hesitantly pointing to the boardroom.

"If you're quite done insulting everyone on this planet? Yeah, I wouldn't mind."

* * *

When Llewellyn had entered the boardroom he hadn't known what to expect.

The room itself was large and modern with glass walls on three sides and part of the ancient stone wall of the Tower on the fourth. Two people were already inside it.

One was a youngish man with dark hair, dressed in a sharp black suit. A handsfree device was attached to his left ear, emitting a small, soft blue pulse of light every few seconds. The other was an older woman who stood with her back to him.

But Llewellyn already knew who she was. He'd met her before on numerous occasions during the launch of the Guinevere One project.

"Mister Llewellyn, ma'am." Major Blake introduced before leaving the room as swiftly as he'd entered it.

As Harriet Jones turned around, she produced her ID card and flashed it at Llewellyn.

"Harriet Jones, Prime Minister." She said as by way of greeting.

"Oh. Well, yes," Llewellyn replied, slightly unsure. "I know who you are. I suppose I've ruined your Christmas."

"Never off duty. Now, we've put out a cover story. Alex has been handling it." Harriet said, indicating the other man.

"We've said it was a hoax. Some sort of mask or prosthetics. Students hijacking the signal, that sort of thing." Alex explained.

"Alex is my right hand man. I'm not used to having a right hand man. I quite like it though." Harriet added, flashing Alex a smile.

"I quite like it myself." Alex said, returning the smile.

"I don't suppose there's any chance it was a hoax?" Llewellyn asked half-heartedly.

"That would be nice, then we could all go home. I don't suppose anyone's offered you a coffee?" Harriet asked, going over to the coffee machine to make him one.

"No," Llewellyn began.

"But no, the transmission was genuine." She continued, handing him a cup of coffee. "And this seems to be a new species of alien. At least, not one we've encountered before." Harriet said, handing him a cup of coffee.

You seem to be talking about aliens as a matter of fact." Llewellyn stated.

"There's an Act of Parliament banning my autobiography."

"Prime Minister." Major Blake had returned. He was stood just outside the doorway, indicating he should be followed.

"I'm with you." Harriet replied, following him out with Alex and Llewellyn following her.

Peter had heard everything that had gone on in the boardroom and had known those inside had left. He still, however, had to be nudged by Stefan and have it pointed out to him to realise the major was heading in the direction of their workstation.

"Lieutenant Argent can explain." He was heard to tell the Prime Minister.

Two more of Peter's men had joined him and Stefan. Corporal John Gordon was just a year younger and was a bright, careful man with a secret ambition to go to Sandhurst and get commissioned. Peter had been working on building his confidence up enough to apply for the past six months and knew he was close to getting through it him. Private James Smith was only seventeen and was still learning the ropes of life in the military. But he was a fast learner and was acclimatising quickly to his first major incident.

All four men quickly stood to attention, all but Peter saluting the major.

"I don't think we've been introduced. Harriet Jones, Prime Minister." Harriet said to him.

"Yes, ma'am. I know who you are." Peter replied before addressing the group. "The transmission didn't come from the surface of Mars. Guinevere One was broadcasting from a point five thousand miles above the planet."

"In other words, they've got a ship and the probe is on board." Major Blake added.

"But if they're not from the surface, then they might not be from Mars itself. Maybe they're not actual Martians." Llewellyn deduced.

"Of course not. Martians look completely different." Major Blake said dryly. "We think the ship was in flight when they just came across the probe."

"And they're moving. The ship's still in flight now. We've got it on the Hubble array." Peter said, indicating the large screen.

"Moving in which direction?" Harriet asked, now watching the signal of the probe on the screen intently.

"Towards us."

"How fast?"

"Very fast."

"What was your name again?" Harriet asked still not taking her eyes off the screen.

"Peter." He replied. "Lieutenant Peter Argent."

"Thank you, Peter."

Guinevere One was returning to Earth. Who and what it was bringing with it, they wouldn't have to wait long to find out.


	5. Chapter 5

Mickey was scarily good with computers.

Less than an hour since the aliens had broadcasted themselves live across the world, he'd managed to hack into the most secure of governmental websites.

"Rose. Take a look. I've got access to the military. They're tracking a spaceship. It's big, it's fast, and it's coming this way."

Rose came over from where she'd been watching the news reports and saw on the laptop screen a signal belonging to something big was nearing the Earth.

"Coming for what, though? The Doctor?" She asked.

"I don't know. Maybe it's coming for all of us."

The image on the screen scattered and became static before four of the aliens appeared. This time they could be seen clearly. Horned skull headed with glowing red eyes, they were dressed in blood red robes and various pieces of what gruesomely look like bones and hair hanging down from their leather guards. "Have you seen them before?" Mickey asked, turning to Rose.

"No." She replied.

The leader of the alien held a large staff in one hand and a whip in the other. There was also a compact crossbow hanging from his belt. He began speaking, the language low and guttural with numerous growls and hisses.

But quickly Rose realised something was wrong. "I don't understand what they're saying." She whispered. "The Tardis translates alien languages inside my head, all the time, wherever I am."

"So, why isn't it doing it now?" Mickey asked.

"I don't know." She shrugged, close to tears again. "Must be the Doctor. Like he's part of the circuit, and he's, he's broken."

All eyes in basement 11 had turned to the large screen when the alien's transmission had come through. Though no one could understand them, they all watched the address intently.

Still stood besides Broadsword 42's workstation, Major Blake turned to Alex.

"Translation software." He ordered.

"Yes, sir." Alex replied, leaving at once.

Behind him, the aliens let out a battle cry before the transmission cut out.

* * *

Peter Argent wasn't happy. In fact, he was beyond unhappy.

Aside from making him deaf in one ear, his earpiece had not stopped receiving communications since the alien's second broadcast. What had started out as an appearance was now looking like an impending invasion and the world wanted answers. With the Prime Minister in the base she'd not been able to talk to anyone on the outside. No one had, they'd all been far too busy.

But that didn't stop the phones ringing.

Peter could see the Prime Minister inside the boardroom as he approached it, along with her aid, Llewellyn, and Major Blake. Knocking on the glass door, he stood to attention and waited for the major to invite him in before speaking.

"Sir, we're getting demands from Washington." He said through a tense jawline. "The President is insisting that he take control of the situation."

"You can tell the President, and please use these exact words," Harriet cut in stiffly. "He's not my boss, and he's certainly not turning this into a war."

"Yes, ma'am." Peter replied, turning to Alex. "Communications also want to know the progress on the language."

"I've got nothing yet." Alex told him. "Translating an alien language is going to take time."

"How far off is the ship?" Major Blake asked, looking to Peter.

"About five hours." He replied. "It'll be here by morning."

No one in London was sleeping.

Hours after their broadcast should have finished, the news reports were still running. Running over every scrap of detail they had again and again, speculating and spreading rumours right across the globe.

"Despite claims of an alien hoax, it's been reported that NATO forces are on red alert." BBC One stated. "Speaking strictly off the record, government sources are calling this our longest night."

Jackie wasn't paying the television the slightest bit of notice.

The Doctor, feverish and still unconscious, needed her attention. She, Rose, and Mickey didn't know what to do with him. All they seemed able to do was to mop his brow and keep him tucked up. After the excitement with the killer Christmas tree, the hours of waiting, wondering whether or not these aliens were going to be a threat, seemed to drag on forever.

"Oh, come on sweetheart." She begged him from his bedside. "What do you need? What is it you need? Tell me."

When dawn broke Jackie was still at his bedside.

Rose watched the sleeping form of her mother from the ruined doorway before her gaze shifted to the Doctor.

"The Doctor wouldn't do this." She said to Mickey. "The old Doctor, the proper Doctor, he'd wake up. He'd save us."

"You really love him, don't you?" He asked her.

Not able to answer him, Rose settled on turning to him and allowing his arms to wrap around her.

Peter was relieved to get back to his detachment's workstation.

Kensington was for once pulling his weight and had assembled all of Broadsword 42 so that they could collate and catch up on all the intel they had, and try to figure out a plan for when the ship did arrive.

But until they knew what was being said by the aliens, and what it was they wanted exactly, there wasn't much they could do but speculate and suggest.

"I don't suppose we've had a Code Nine?" Peter asked.

"Nothing, boss." Stefan replied.

"Well, I suppose it was a long shot he'd turn up." Peter muttered. "Personally, I don't know why we put so much faith in him."

"You're not one of those 'the Doctor will save me' people then, sir?" Lance Corporal Sam Reynolds asked.

Peter scoffed. There were some personnel in UNIT who - perhaps having read the Doctor's file too many times - had the idea that the Time Lord would swan in and save the day every time a crisis arose.

Reynolds was one of those people. The same age as Peter, he put his faith in three very different things. God, his unit, and the Doctor.

"No I'm not." Peter told him, before looking to the whole unit.

They had all been at the end of a twelve hour shift when the aliens had first shown themselves. That was seven hours ago. They were all exhausted and Peter could sense the mutual deflated feeling amongst his unit. "Look, I know we're all tired, and worried about what's going to happen. But we can't rely on one man saving the day." He told them. "So whether the Doctor shows up or not, whoever those creatures are, whatever they want. We are going to put an end to this."

"Course we are, boss." Stefan reassured. Gordon and Reynolds nodded in agreement whilst Smith looked much more confident than he'd been for half the night.

Only Kensington seemed unmotivated by the speech.

"How?" He asked bluntly. "How are we going to stop them?"

Before a glaring Peter could reply, he saw that Major Blake and the Prime Minister were once again approaching the workstation.

"Sir." Peter greeted, standing to attention with the rest of his men. "Ma'am."

"What progress, Argent?" Major Blake asked.

Peter shifted uncomfortably.

"Well, we don't have anything solid as of yet, sir. But I'm -"

"No sign of the Doctor?" Harriet asked.

"No, ma'am. " Peter told her.

"Oh," Harriet said, deflating slightly.

"You've met him, haven't you? More like the stuff of legend." Major Blake ventured.

"He is that. Failing him, what about Torchwood?"

Of all the men present, only the three officers reacted. Their eyes simultaneously widened whilst their jaws dropped slightly.

"I -" Major Blake began, visibly shocked.

"I know I'm not supposed to know about it, I realise that. Not even the United Nations knows. But if ever there was a need for Torchwood, it's now." Harriet replied swiftly.

"I can't take responsibility."

"I can. See to it. Get them ready."

Harriet marched off before further protests could be made. Stood watching her for a few moments, Major Blake turned on his heel to face Peter.

"Argent, you know what to do. Get them ready." He ordered, before following after the Prime Minister.

Catching Peter's nod, Kensington rounded on the unit.

"Okay, back to work." He ordered before he and his commanding officer separated themselves from them. "Sir, we can't use them!" He immediately hissed. "You know what they're like. They make us look as if we're children with water pistols."

"Well, you wanted a solution, Kensington." Peter told him grimly. "I think we've just been handed one."

"You can't consider them, surely? I mean... they're hardly ethical."

Peter folded his arms and glanced curiously at him.

"Kensington, are you actually beginning to grow a conscious?" He asked, grinning.

"Very funny." Kensington retorted. "So, what are we going to do?"

Peter threw up his arms.

"What can we do? It's the PM's order and..." He stopped mid sentence, looking as though a thought had just occurred to him. "I've got an idea. Get Torchwood ready."

"But what's the idea?"

But Peter was already dashing off after the major and Prime Minister.

"Sir," he called as he caught up. "Sir, if I may have a word?"

Signalling that Harriet should continue on without him, Major Blake turned to his subordinate.

"Be quick about it, Argent." He told him, sounding impatient.

"Sir I've just thought, we might not need to use Torchwood." Peter replied quickly.

"The PM has ordered -"

"Yes sir, but..." Peter faltered under the look the major gave him for interrupting but continued when no reprimand came. "We can still get Torchwood ready, just like the PM ordered. But they would be our second line of defence, sir."

Major Blake's eyebrow arched.

"And what would be our first?" He asked.

Peter swallowed and, for once, thought about what he was going to say.

"Royal Blue, sir."

The major's other eyebrow lifted up to join the first in a look of surprise.

Peter shifted uncomfortably in the brief silence that followed, not able to tell whether or not he was about to be congratulated or sent away with his tail between his legs. Finally, he decided he couldn't bear it anymore and might as well throw himself into it completely. "The objective I'm assuming is to take down the ship, sir. Royal Blue could take this one going on the size we've estimated and do the job as good as anything Torchwood has. If we can -"

"Yes," the major said.

"Sir?" Peter asked cautiously.

"Yes, I agree." Major Blake told him, his frown lightening slightly. "Good thinking, Argent."

"Thank you, sir." Peter replied, relieved.

"Go and get it ready then." Major Blake ordered when Peter lingered a moment too long. "Oh, and Argent?"

Peter turned back. "Protocol two zero zero. I'm giving you authorisation to use Royal Blue should I become compromised."

"Yes sir." Peter nodded, trying to keep the weight of responsibility off of his expression.

For a moment Major Blake studied the officer before him. He was uncommonly young for his rank and was still new in terms of a military career, but he was known widely on the base as a brilliant leader and tactician, even if his methods were sometimes unorthodox.

"This is on your head now, as much as it is on mine. Think you can handle it?"

"Well, sir." Peter replied steadily. "I hope we don't have to resort to it. But if we have to, I won't hesitate pulling the trigger."

* * *

Finally, the translation software had done its job.

Alex dashed out of the boardroom with Llewellyn, laptop in hand.

"Prime Minister." He called on his way past Harriet and Major Blake, indicating they should follow him.

"Has it worked?" Harriet asked as he set the laptop down on a vacant workstation.

"Just about." He replied before beginning to read out loud the translated transcript of the alien's earlier broadcast. "People. That could be cattle. You belong to us. To the Sycorax." He read. "They seem to be called Sycorax, not Martians. We own you. We now possess your land, your minerals, your precious stones. You will surrender or they will die. Sycorax strong, Sycorax mighty, Sycorax rock, as in the modern sense, they rock."

"They will die? Not you will die, they will die? Who's they?" Llewellyn questioned.

"I don't know, but it is the right personal pronoun. It's they."

"Send them a reply." Harriet ordered.

Producing a electronic organiser, Alex stood ready to note it down. "Tell them, this is a day of peace on planet Earth. Tell them, we extend that peace to the Sycorax. And then tell them, this planet is armed and we do not surrender."

From across the basement, Peter Argent had heard everything that had been said.


	6. Chapter 6

It had been easier than before.

The last time he'd eavesdropped, Peter had needed to get past a glass wall before he'd reached the conversation. This time, he'd only had to remove his earpiece and focus in on what the Prime Minister's aid was translating, and what the responses of his employer, the major, and Llewellyn were.

Peter wasn't listening in because he was being nosy, or even because he was curious. He'd known from the moment he'd seen the aid dash down to the workstations that the translation of the alien's message was ready. Knowing in advance that the aliens were indeed hostile without having to wait to be told would give him and his team an advantage in preparing for their arrival.

Focusing in on voices such a distance away, however, did come with a disadvantage. Peter needed to block out all other surrounding noises so that they didn't interfere with what it was he wanted to listen to.

This included the voice of Corporal Gordon, who'd tried several times to get the attention of his commanding officer.

"Sir?" He called. "Sir?"

He was getting worried now, Peter looked alert and awake but was just sitting at the workstation as though he wasn't paying the slightest bit of attention to anything around him.

"Sir?" It was getting silly now. Gordon was stood right next to him, calling him. Was he deaf?

The snapping sound thundered through Peter's eardrum and reverberated around his head. Nearly tumbling from his chair he looked up to see a very bemused Gordon stood next to him, his fingers still held aloft after clicking them.

"Gordon," he breathed. "What is it?"

The throbbing in his head was subsiding now. It was another disadvantage of focusing in his hearing that any sharp or high pitched sounds, such as someone clicking their fingers next to his ear, would still find their way in no matter how much he blocked them out and would become painful to listen to. Of course, Gordon didn't know this and had assumed he had merely startled his commanding officer, not nearly split his head open.

"Just that Royal Blue is ready, sir." Gordon told him. "Are you okay?"

"Fine," Peter reassured, rubbing the side of his head where it still hurt. "That just goes right through me, that's all."

"Clicking fingers, sir?" Gordon question.

"Yeah," Peter replied, replacing his earpiece. "They've translated the broadcast."

"They've told you?"

"More or less." Peter frowned, growing serious. "Sounds like the Sycorax are coming without the seasonal greetings."

"Sycorax?"

"It's what they're called."

"So, chances we'll make it home for Christmas dinner pretty low then?" Gordon joked meekly.

"Going on what our incoming guests are saying, we'll be lucky not to end up on the menu ourselves."

Outside, dawn had steadily turned into morning.

Bathed in the bright, golden sunlight, London emerged out of the darkness of what had been a very long night.

The White Tower gleamed in the warm rays of daybreak but inside, it could have still been midnight. The artificial lighting and lack of windows prevented any visual indication of how much time had passed, only people's watches and the location of the incoming Sycorax ship could do that.

Having gone almost twenty two hours without sleep, Peter's eyes were stinging with tiredness. He just needed five minutes. Five minutes of not thinking about the invading Sycorax, five minutes without having to worry about the safety of the planet because of invading aliens. Just five minutes...

Of course, it would of been neglectful of him to actually fall asleep on the job. Instead, he reclined in his chair, closed his eyes and kept his ears open for anything that would drag him back into the reality of working for UNIT.

* * *

Despite the severity of the alert, the blinking red light and alarm built into the workstation's panel were both relatively small and quiet.

Peter's ears picked it up immediately but his half asleep brain couldn't process what the rather annoying little noise was. It seemed to only exist to interrupt his rest, to tell him that he had to wake up and deal with something that was just going to cause stress and worry.

When the information finally got through, he jerked awake and immediately looked at the screen next to the alarm.

It was still showing the location of the Sycorax ship, but now, in big bold capital letters, the words 'INCOMING TRANSMISSION' were flashing across it.

"What's that?" Stefan asked as he, Gordon, and Smith all took notice of the alarm.

"It's trouble," Peter muttered, jumping to his feet and grabbing his radio from his belt. "Greyhound Four to Greyhounds Nine and Fourteen, request immediate report to station. Repeat, Greyhounds Nine and Fourteen, report immediately to your station."

The voices of Kensington and Reynolds came though to his earpiece a moment later, confirming they were on their way. Once they had, Peter hastily switched channels on his radio. "Greyhound Four to Watchtower. Sir, they're transmitting, right now. You'd better get down here sir."

All of Broadsword 42 were present and on full alert when Major Blake arrived from the boardroom with the Prime Minister, her aid, and Llewellyn.

The large screen was on standby and ready to show the transmission as soon as it came through, so there was no need to ask why they'd been summoned.

Peter, however, still felt obligated to explain. "Sir, they got the message. Here comes the response."

Through a burst of static, the Sycorax leader appeared onscreen.

Instead of speaking, he held out his hand. A bright blue light began pulsing in short, sharp bursts around it before disappearing, only to appear again a moment later.

The transmission cut off.

"What was that?" Harriet asked, addressing Alex in particular. "Was that a reply?"

"I don't know. It looked like some sort of energy, or static?" He suggested.

"Almost like someone casting a spell." Llewellyn muttered.

With all eyes still trained on the large screen, no one noticed that the same bright blue light was now pulsing around Stefan's head.

"Maybe it's a different form of language, some sort of ideogram or pictogram?" Peter suggested. "Maybe we should..."

He had trailed off because Stefan had walked straight past him. He walked straight past the major too, and the Prime Minister. What was he thinking?

"Sergeant Amell, what are you...?" Kensington never finished his reprimand.

They all saw the blue light pulse around Stefan's head.

If Peter listened carefully enough he could hear a small buzzing noise every time the light appeared. He saw too that Stefan wasn't alone. At random points throughout the basement, more flashes of the blue light could be seen pulsing over people's heads. They too were all starting to leave their positions and walk out with Stefan, all of them heading towards the large exit doors at the side of the basement.

"What the hell? It's the light. It's the same light." Llewellyn realised.

Peter dived forward and grabbed hold of Stefan's arm before he could get any further away. "Stefan, what're you doing? Stefan?" He asked, trying to pull him back to the workstation.

But, instead of stopping, Stefan carried on walking, pulling against Peter's grip no matter how much it tightened.

His glassy eyed stare and emotionless expression immediately told Peter that something had taken over his friend, that he was no longer in control of his actions nor was he aware of them.

Still, Peter wasn't about to let him go.

"Oh, leave him." Harriet called out, sounding worried. "You'll hurt him."

Peter didn't want to do that, but nor did he want his best friend and twenty or so other people walking out of the basement and disappearing whilst under some kind of alien hypnosis.

But there was a more immediate problem before that would happen.

Two armed privates stood guarding the doors the affected personnel were heading towards. Like everyone else in the basement they were stood watching with a mixture of shock and concern etched across their faces.

Their rifles rose up, however, as it became clear the people heading towards them were not going to stop.

Peter had been ready to verbally bury them into the ground for even considering this, but Major Blake got there first.

"Let them pass!" He ordered firmly but calmly.

Obeying their orders without hesitation, the two privates watched as the personnel they'd been ready to fire upon just a moment ago, randomly but collectively walked past them and out of the basement.

"Where are they going?" Llewellyn asked.

Watching Stefan leave the basement with the others, Peter forced himself to take a deep breath in order to not let his rising temper get the better of him. He knew what would happen if he did, and dealing with the consequences of that wasn't an option right now, not when his friend and a sizeable portion of his colleagues were in danger.

"I don't know," he muttered. "But I'm going to find out."

* * *

Reaching the Level 2 corridor - just one of the many cold, concrete passageways that linked the base together - Harriet, Alex, and Llewellyn continued to follow the line of affected UNIT personnel.

"They're all heading in the same direction." Harriet realised.

"It's only certain people. Why isn't it affecting us?" Llewellyn asked.

Having been listening to a communication via his handsfree device, Alex looked up at Harriet with a large degree of shock in both his face and in his voice when he spoke.

"Prime Minister, it's happening all over the country."

Far away from London, the residents of Leyfield Road were pouring out of their homes.

Given that it was Christmas Day, most were still in their pyjamas and dressing gowns. But, whilst some were content with wandering outside and down the street, there were more residents, family and friends, trying to stop them and growing frantic when they could not.

Susan Davidson was having to follow her husband and two young children, pleading desperately with all three of them.

"Alan, come on, now stop this. It's not funny anymore." She told her husband, tugging on his dressing gown's sleeve. "Come on, Alan, come back inside the house.

Again, no response came so she turned to her daughter and son, hoping she could get through to them. "Katherine. Katherine, listen to mummy. You come back inside now. And you, Jonathan." She said, taking each of her children by the hand. "You come back in with mummy. Jonathon, come back in with mummy. You're scaring me now!"

Neither responded.

On the verge of tears, Susan looked back to her husband.

"Come on! Alan, help me out here, please."

London had been the first to report that people were randomly stopping what they were doing and walking off, without any obvious purpose or ability to respond to the people surrounding them.

Rose had heard one of her neighbours shouting at another as they walked past Jackie's flat. It was not an uncommon thing to hear on the estate, but the woman's frantic calls and desperate pleading had made her and Mickey want to know what was going on.

The two neighbours had just passed the flat when they peered out of the front door.

Rose recognised them immediately as Jason and Sandra Howard. They lived just two doors down and were two of the quietest and happiest people she knew, so to see them shouting at one another was quite frightening.

"What is wrong with you? Jason? Jason?" Sandra shouted at her husband.

"Sandra?" Rose called.

"He won't listen." Sandra cried back over her shoulder. "He's just walking. He won't stop walking! There's this sort of light thing. Jason? Stop it right now! Please, Jason, just stop."

As Sandra continued to follow her husband, crying and begging him to stop, Rose and Mickey looked down and all around at the estate.

Dozens of people were out walking, all of them ignoring the people who'd followed them out to try and stop them.

Slowly, it was becoming obvious where all the people were going.

In Cardiff they watched as hundreds of people all began climbing up staircases of any nearby tall building.

"As far as I can tell, they're heading for any sort of high-rise building." PC Andy Jones radioed in. "Anything with stairs, anything with steps."

He watched with horror as the hundreds of people reached the rooftops and slowly but surely approached the edges of the building. "Just making my way to the front of the building now. There's hundreds of them. Oh, God. They've gone right to the edge. They're going to jump. They're all going to jump!"

The personnel at the White Tower had not yet reached the rooftop, but there was no doubt that was where they were heading.

Llewellyn had run ahead to see for himself what was going on and came racing back down the staircase, stopping when he saw Major Blake and Peter heading his way.

"They're going all the way up. They're going to the roof." He told them.

When Peter reached the roof of the White Tower and burst out into the bright winter daylight he saw that Stefan was already halfway across the rooftop, walking with the others towards the edge.

"Stefan, stop it." He called, running around his friend so that he was putting himself between Stefan and the edge of the roof. "It's me, it's Peter. Peter Argent. Stefan, just concentrate. Listen to me. You're being controlled. We need you! Stop it, Stefan!"

Still Stefan continued to walk towards the edge of the roof and the ninety foot drop that would without doubt kill him, and for every step he took forwards, Peter had to take a step back.

Holding out his hand towards his friend, Peter was surprised to feel tears prickling in the corners of his eyes. He was scared, he was scared about what was happening and that he couldn't stop it. "Stefan, please. I'm begging you mate. Just stop, just think about what you're doing. Fight it!"

Still there was no reaction, and Peter knew there and then that he wasn't going to get through to his friend, that no words were going to make a difference. Action was needed.

Not quite believing it had come to this, Peter found himself reaching for his gun.

It was a German built SIG-Sauer P226 pistol with a nine nineteen millimetre cartridge. Compared to other semi-automatics of similar size it was quite heavy, but was more reliable. It had been designed for military use and was a favourite with many of the world's armed forces. Accidental fire was avoided because of its bespoke decocking lever, which also made the weapon 'drop safe'. It wouldn't fire unless the trigger was pulled, even if force was applied to the gun such as it being dropped or knocked during a struggle. Properly decocked, however, it could be holstered safely but fired quickly in rapid succession simply by pulling the trigger.

Peter wasn't in any rush to pull it now.

Keeping it pointed low to the ground, he was hoping the sight of the weapon would be enough to bring Stefan out of his controlled state.

It wasn't. Stefan was still walking towards his death.

Peter drew in a deep breath and aimed his gun. "Sergeant Amell, I order you to stop. If you don't I have the authorisation to use lethal force."

Stefan took another step forward.

Peter pulled down the decocking lever. Next would come the hammer, which would allow him to fire the weapon. Maybe he could just fire a few shots into the air? Maybe the noise alone would be enough?

Somehow he knew it wouldn't. He'd have to shoot him. He'd have to shoot his best friend to save his life. The irony was almost funny.

Slowly, Peter pulled the hammer down.

But before he moved his index finger towards the trigger, Peter changed what he was aiming at.

The femoral artery ran all the way down the human leg, and shooting Stefan through the knee meant there was a risk of hitting it and causing massive bleeding. But Peter was a marksman shot and, like any good soldier, never fired unless all other options had been exhausted. He never put the people he cared about in danger and today was no exception.

Stefan might have to go into hospital for a week or two, but it was better than him falling to his death.

"Stand down lieutenant."

Major Blake didn't sound angry as he emerged out onto the rooftop with Llewellyn, but disobeying him would be a mistake.

"If he can't stand he can't walk, sir." Peter called back, daring to keep his gun aloft.

"He'd find a way." The major replied, before indicating Peter's hands. "And you're not prepared to take that shot. So stand down, now."

Peter looked down at his hands and saw that they were shaking, even as they clasped his gun. He lowered and stowed away the weapon immediately.

It was the biggest indictor you couldn't and shouldn't fire if you were unable to keep your hands steady. As well as it showing you weren't mentally prepared, it caused a tremor in the gun which would immediately spoil your aim. You'd miss your target, you'd end up not killing them when you needed to, or you'd kill them when you didn't want to.

"So what do we do?" Peter asked, staying put between Stefan and the roof's edge, which was now only a few steps away. "Let them all jump, sir?"

"Look at them." Major Blake told him.

Peter looked and saw.

All of the affected people had all stopped. They'd all stopped. They were just standing there, right on the edge.

"But, why..." Peter whispered as he finally stepped away from Stefan, who joined the other personnel in standing one step away from their deaths.

"Surrender or they will die." Llewellyn echoed.

* * *

Alex's headset had not stopped ringing.

Still stood with the Prime Minister, he continued to relay her what was being reported.

"It's not just the whole country. It's the whole world." He whispered. "According to reports, it's like a third. One third of the world's population. That's two billion people ready to jump."

The Colosseum in Rome, apartments overlooking the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the White tower and the tower blocks of the Powell Estate in London, the affected people stood, as though waiting for someone to tell them to take that final step.

"What do we do?" Mickey asked.

He and Rose had followed the people up onto the top of their tower block, along with others who were still trying to pull their loved ones away from the edge.

"Nothing." Rose told him, gazing out at the estate. "There's no one to save us. Not anymore."


	7. Chapter 7

Both Major Blake and Peter were expecting an explanation for what was happening by the time they and Llewellyn returned to basement 11.

They weren't disappointed.

Alex and the Prime Minister were stood waiting for them at a vacant workstation - there were a few to choose from now, given a third of the personnel were currently standing on the roof.

Peter caught a glimpse of his unit, all of them waiting for him at their workstation, but he knew that he first needed to find out how Stefan and the others were being controlled before a plan could be formulated to save them.

"There is a pattern." Alex explained. "All these people tend to be father and son, mother and daughter, brothers and sisters. Family groups, but not husbands and wives."

"Oh, my God." Llewellyn gasped. "It's Guinevere One. Have you got medical records on file for all your staff?"

"Of course we have, yes."

As Llewellyn sat down at the workstation's computer and began to type furiously, Harriet took the opportunity to pull Major Blake aside.

"What about Torchwood?" She asked.

"Still working on it. Bear in mind they have just lost a third of their staff." He told her.

"But do they have what we need?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Well, tell them to hurry up." She ordered, returning to the workstation just as Llewellyn found what he'd been looking for.

"Here it is. Sergeant Stefan Amell, blood group A Positive." He said, pointing to Stefan's medical file. "Who else walked out?"

"Luke Parsons." Alex said.

"Luke Parsons," Llewellyn muttered, typing at the keyboard. "A Positive."

"Jeffery Baxter."

"Baxter, A Positive. That's it. They're all A Positive."

"How many people in the world are A Positive?" Major Blake asked.

"No idea, but I bet it's one third."

"What's so special about that blood group?" Peter asked.

"Nothing, but it's my fault." Llewellyn admitted. "Guinevere One. It's got one of those plaques identifying the human race. A message to the stars. I mean, you don't expect anything to come of it, but I put on maps and music and samples. There's wheat seeds, and water, and, and blood. A Positive. The Sycorax have got a vial of A Positive. And, well, I don't know how, but through that -"

"They control the blood." Harriet finished.

"Oh, my God." Llewellyn gasped again.

Harriet turned to the two officers.

"Major, lieutenant. What would be the best way to initiate a Code Nine?"

For a moment, both men seemed unable to answer her. It wasn't as though the Doctor had a mobile phone they could call, or a forwarding address. How could you contact a man that could be anywhere in time and space, let alone one who had a notorious reputation for avoiding soldiers and summonings?

UNIT normally wound up bumping into him on operation, or managed to catch him when someone spotted his blue police box shaped ship, the TARDIS.

"Well ma'am," Peter eventually said. "Recently he's taken up domestic habits, due to his last known companion. Perhaps we can explore options down that route?"

Harriet nodded, an idea already forming in her mind.

"There's one thing I can try. Both of you, with me."

* * *

With two Union flags draped at either side of her, Harriet Jones, sat in the finest office the Tower of London could provide.

It was a dark wood panelled room, with rich red rugs covering the stone floor and a large mahogany desk that took up most of the available space.

It scream power and oozed Britishness. Someone had even added a framed photograph of Her Majesty The Queen.

There was just enough room in the office to fit in the one camera and the necessary lighting and sound equipment, a minimal crew, and Major Blake and Peter.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Harriet began, addressing the camera she knew was transmitting her live to every news channel in the world. "If I may take a moment during this terrible time. It's hardly the Queen's speech. I'm afraid that's been cancelled."

Pausing, she glanced at Major Blake and Peter. "Did we ask about the royal family?"

The two men exchanged a look before Peter looked back and silently indicated upwards.

Harriet's heart sunk a little further. "Oh. They're on the roof."

Rose, Mickey, and Jackie watched as Harriet continued her address. Like millions of other people around the world, they had turned to their televisions in the hope of finding an explanation or advice on what was happening and what to do next.

"But, ladies and gentlemen, this crisis is unique, and I'm afraid to say, it might get much worse. I would ask you all to remain calm." Harriet told them. "But I have one request. Doctor, if you're out there, we need you. I don't know what to do. If you can hear me, Doctor. If anyone knows the Doctor, if anyone can find him, the situation has never been more desperate. Help us. Please, Doctor. Help us. God help us."

Rose ran from the lounge and had burst into tears by the time she'd reached Jackie's bedroom door.

Jackie had followed her daughter and held her as she sobbed.

"He's gone. The Doctor's gone. He's left me, mum. He's left me, mum."

"It's all right." Jackie soothed. "I'm sorry."

They both screamed and dived to the floor when the flat's windows were blown apart as the whole building shook.

The sudden tremor was being felt right across London, and anything glass shattered - including the windows of the iconic Gherkin building - whilst entire slabs of concrete, multiple slate tiles, or anything else that could be dislodged, broke off their buildings and crashed to the ground.

It had even been felt far below ground in basement 11, where the emergency alarms had been triggered.

"Sonic wave!" Llewellyn shouted above the din of the blaring sirens. "It's the spaceship. It's hit the atmosphere!"

A shadow was falling across London.

Everyone not being controlled by the Sycorax turned to look, and became as still as the affected people were as they saw it appear.

Rose and Mickey had gone outside to examine the damage to the estate, but stood and stared as the huge, powered rock with nasty pointed spikes glided overhead, looking big enough to be covering the entirety of the city.

The Sycorax had finally arrived.

* * *

Rose burst back into her flat with Mickey close on her heels, and wasted no time in going to the Doctor's bedside.

"Mickey, we're going to carry him." She said, pulling back the bedcovers and clumsily dressing the Doctor in Howard's dressing gown.

Jackie was lingering at the doorway, watching as Mickey went in to help Rose. "Mum, get your stuff, and get some food. We're going." Rose told her.

"Where to?" Mickey asked, picking up the Doctor's feet.

"The Tardis. It's the only safe place on Earth." Rose replied matter-of-factly.

"What're we going to do in there?" Jackie questioned.

"Hide."

"Is that it?"

"Mum," Rose groaned, pointing out of the windowless window frame. "Look in the sky. There's a great big alien invasion and I don't know what to do, all right? I've travelled with him, and I've seen all that stuff, but when I'm stuck at home, I'm useless. Now, all we can do is run and hide, and I'm sorry. Now move."

As Jackie disappeared to collect food, Rose and Mickey took the strain of the Doctor's surprisingly heavy weight between them and began to carry him towards the front door.

The image on the large screen in basement 11 faded in a burst of static as the Sycorax began another broadcast.

"They're transmitting. Onscreen." Llewellyn announced.

Peter was standing with the rest of Broadsword 42 and turned to look. He'd been trying to explain what had happened up on the rooftop to his unit and had done his best to keep them all on task, despite their own personal worries for Stefan. But as he saw Major Blake, the Prime Minister and her aid join Llewellyn at the foot of the screen, Peter suddenly felt as though he needed to go with them.

"Stay here." He ordered to his unit, walking off.

"But sir -" Kensington began.

"Stay put, I'll be back in a minute."

He didn't have any right to be there, he'd not been invited. But somehow, Peter felt he had gotten himself too heavily involved. He couldn't pass on the opportunity of dealing with the Sycorax directly, not when he'd come up with some of the major strategies now in place, not when it was his best friend in danger because of the trouble they'd caused. Why shouldn't he get to face them?

Perhaps Major Blake felt the same way, as he did not protest when he saw Peter walk up and stand beside him.

As the Sycorax leader appeared on screen and began speaking, Alex began translating via his electronic organiser.

"Will the leader of this world stand forward." He translated.

Harriet stepped forward without hesitation.

"I'm proud to represent this planet." She told the Sycorax leader.

"Come aboard."

Harriet turned to Alex, wondering if he'd translated correctly. She looked back at the screen and at the Sycorax leader.

"Well, how do I do that?" She asked.

He didn't provide an answer, but the bright blue light that enveloped the five of them did.

"What's happening?" Llewellyn asked.

"I would imagine it's called a teleport." Harriet managed to reply before they all vanished, the light left behind shooting up and disappearing through the ceiling.

* * *

It was colossal.

The Sycorax's ship was more like a massive cavern than a spaceship. The floor was covered in a very fine sandy dust that must have fallen down from the dome shaped roof, rocky spikes as big as houses hanging from it. Around the walls, galleries had been carved into the rock face, rising up at least thirty stories.

Crammed in on every level, the hundreds of Sycorax trained their glowing red eyes on the five new arrivals.

At first, they all looked the same to Peter. But if he looked closely enough he could see tiny variations in height or bulk, or the various gruesome adornments of hair and bone they were wearing on their blood red robes.

The Sycroax leader was the most distinguishable. He was the biggest and meanest looking one of them all, slamming the end of his large wooden staff down onto the ground with every stride he took towards them, his whip held coiled in one hand and his compact crossbow bouncing around his waist.

He stopped just short of them, his clawed and bony hands reached up to his cow skull head. Slowly, he began to pull it off, allowing the real face of the Sycorax to be revealed.

"It's a helmet." Llewellyn whispered. "They might be like us."

But whilst the face underneath the skull was flatter and more rounded, it wasn't even close to resembling a human's.

The bone was still there, running across his forehead, around the eyes and down the side of his head to the chin. The mouth and eye areas were skinless, exposing the red muscle that could be seen contracting and relaxing whilst his teeth were razored and pointed like a shark's. He also didn't have any lips or eyelids, nor was there any hair or sign of anything comparable to a human. Even the eyes were unrecognisable for what they were, small and sunset orange with only a pinprick of black for pupils.

Llewellyn swallowed hard. "Or not."

The Sycorax leader began to speak.

"You will surrender," Alex translated. "Or I will release the final curse, and your people will jump."

"If I can speak." Llewellyn spoke up, stepping towards the Sycorax leader.

"Mister Llewellyn, you're a civilian." Major Blake hissed, grabbing hold of his arm.

"No, I sent out the probe." He told him, shaking himself free. "I started it. I made contact with these people. This whole thing's my responsibility."

The Sycorax leader cocked his head, perhaps in curiosity, as Llewellyn stepped forward to address him. "With respect, sir." He began, his voice shaking. "The human race is taking it's first step towards the stars, but we are like children compared to you. Children who need help. Children who need compassion. I beg of you now, show that compassion."

There was a pause, a moment of consideration. But it was only for a moment.

The Sycorax leader's whip crackled into life, electrical charge coursing down its length. A war cry was bellowed out by the alien as he threw it out towards Llewellyn.

It caught the man around his neck and he screamed once before his flesh disintegrated, leaving only his charred bones in a smouldering pile on the ground.

"That man was your prisoner!" Major Blake shouted, striding towards the Sycroax leader. "Even your species must have articles of war, forbidding -"

He suffered the same fate before he could finish what he was saying.

Both Peter and Alex had taken a step forward, but Harriet had put out her arms in front of them before slowly walking forwards herself, her ID card already in her hand.

"Harriet Jones, Prime Minister." She introduced.

"Yes, we know who you are." Alex translated as the Sycorax leader replied. "Surrender or they will die."

"If I do surrender, how would that be better?" She asked.

"Half is sold into slavery or one third dies. Your choice."


	8. Chapter 8

Together, Rose and Mickey had managed to carry the Doctor down to the TARDIS.

Jackie was following behind them, struggling to carry the half a dozen carrier bags of supplies she'd hastily grabbed from the kitchen. Dropping one, she had to stop and rearrange the bags in order to free up a hand to pick it back up again.

"Mum, will you just leave that stuff and give us a hand?" Rose shouted as she and Mickey struggled to get the Doctor through the TARDIS doors.

"It's food!" Jackie shouted back. "You said we need food."

"Just leave it!"

Carrying the Doctor into the TARDIS console room, they lowered him gently onto the grated metal floor.

"No chance you could fly this thing?" Mickey asked, glancing wearily around at the ship.

"Not anymore, no." Rose replied.

"Well, you did it before."

"I know," She sighed, leaning against the console. "But it's sort of been wiped out of my head, like it's forbidden. Try that again and I think the universe rips in half."

"Ah, better not, then." Mickey chuckled.

"Maybe not."

"So, what do we do? Just sit here?" He asked.

"That's as good as it gets." She retorted.

Jackie had finally caught up with them, struggling to fit all of her carrier bags through the TARDIS doors.

"Right, here we go." She said in a cheerful voice, setting down the bags and picking up a thermal flask. "Nice cup of tea."

"Mmm, the solution to everything." Rose muttered, rolling her eyes.

"Now, stop your moaning." Jackie told her, pouring the hot tea into the flask's cup. "I'll get the rest of the food."

Handing Mickey the cup and flask, Jackie dashed out of the TARDIS. This just left Rose and Mickey with the unconscious Doctor.

"Tea." Mickey suddenly laughed. "Like we're having a picnic while the world comes to an end. Very British."

The screen attached to the console caught his eye. Frowning, he wondered over to it. "How does this thing work?" He asked as Rose joined him. "If it picks up TV, maybe we could see what's going on out there. Maybe we've surrendered. What do you do to it?"

With its strange, untranslatable gallifreyan symbols that only the Doctor could read, Rose didn't have a clue how to work the screen, let alone get it to show her television channels.

"I don't know. It sort of tunes itself." She said, tapping the screen randomly.

In doing so, she had triggered something as a small, soft but persistent and rapid beeping noise began emitting from the console.

In one corner of the Sycorax ship, set at the top of a small flight of stairs carved out of the rocky architecture, was a large stone plinth. Atop it was what appeared to be a button, one that was pulsing with a red light.

The Sycorax leader had pointed it out numerous times to Harriet Jones when he'd threatened her with killing half of the Earth's population, making it obvious that all he had to do was push it for billions to die.

Now, however, Peter could see that the pulsing light beneath the button was blinking at a more rapid rate. Alongside it, there was a beeping sound coming from somewhere within it.

The Sycorax leader didn't like this.

Stomping around, going between the plinth and the nearest Sycorax, he was growling and shouting in a tone no one could have mistaken for anything else but anger.

"The noise. The bleeping." Alex translated. "They say it's machinery. Foreign machinery. They're accusing us of hiding it. Conspiring. Bring it on board."

Harriet leaned towards Peter.

"This isn't anything to do with UNIT is it, lieutenant?" She whispered.

"No ma'am." Peter replied, shaking his head.

"Torchwood?"

"I'd have heard from them if they were ready," he told her, indicating his earpiece. "Whatever this is, it isn't us."

Leaving the tower block with the last of the food she'd packed, Jackie began walking back to the TARDIS.

She stopped dead when she saw the blue light envelope the blue box exterior, at first thinking that the ship was beginning to take off. Then she remembered the three Santas from the previous night and how they'd disappeared from right in front of her eyes, also enveloped in a blue light.

The TARDIS vanished in the exact same way, leaving only a trail of light that shot upwards into the sky and towards the mass of rock that was floating overhead.

"Rose!" She shouted.

But it was too late, the TARDIS containing her daughter was gone.

* * *

The screen was still emitting a beeping noise, it symbols now fluxing and becoming even more difficult to make sense of than before.

"Maybe it's a distress signal." Mickey guessed as he and Rose watched it, both of them now growing bored of waiting around for something to happen.

"A fat lot of good that's going to do." Rose muttered, giving up on the screen and walking around to the other side of the console.

"Are you going to be a misery all the time?"

"Yes." She told him.

"You should look at it from my point of view, stuck in here with your mum's cooking." Mickey laughed.

This made Rose realise that Jackie had been gone for a while now.

"Where is she?" She asked aloud. Exactly how long did it take to go and retrieve a few bags of supplies?

But knowing her mother, it wasn't just a few bags so it might be taking a while. Still, Rose didn't like the idea of Jackie outside of the relatively safe walls of the TARDIS, not when an alien invasion was taking place. "I'd better give her a hand. It might start raining missiles out there." She said, heading towards the door.

"Tell her anything from a tin, that's fine." He told her quickly.

"Why don't you tell her yourself?" She asked, pausing with the door half opened.

"I'm not that brave."

"Oh, I don't know." She told him, smiling, before stepping out of the ship.

Her scream traveled back in a moment later.

"Rose?" Mickey called.

Hearing further shouting, he dropping the flask of tea and raced after her.

He gawked when he saw where he was.

Somehow they'd been transported into a huge cavern, one hundreds of feet high with colossal spikes hanging down from its dome shaped roof.

"Get off! Get off me!"

Mickey looked back down at the sound of Rose shouting.

He saw her being dragged off by one of the skull headed aliens he'd seen on the television. He also saw that the 'cavern' was filled with thousands of them.

They had landed slap bang in the middle of the alien ship.

Rose looked back over her shoulder at him, managing to point towards the TARDIS. "The door! Close the door!"

Dashing back towards the ship, Mickey was just quick enough to beat the Sycorax that had made a grab for him. Seizing the handle and pulling the door shut, he felt the lock securely click before he was roughly hauled over to where Rose was also being taken.

The Sycorax cheered. Given the sheer numbers of them and the shape of the ship, the cry reverted all around and rumbled through the air, nearly making the ground tremble.

Rose and Mickey both realised that they weren't the only prisoners when Rose's name could be heard being called out as the cheering died down.

Rose's eyes widened when she saw Harriet Jones.

The Prime Minister was stood with two men. The first was dark haired, dressed in a black suit with a handsfree device attached to one ear. The second was also dark haired, but was both taller and broader with a more tanned complexion. Wearing a military uniform, he didn't look any older than Rose was herself.

"Rose. Rose!" Harriet cried again as Rose and Mickey were pushed over to where she, Peter, and Alex were stood.

She ran forward and embraced the young girl, holding onto her tightly. "I've got you. My Lord. Oh, my precious thing. The Doctor, is he with you?"

"No." Rose whispered into her ear, staring at the red eyed aliens over Harriet's shoulder. "We're on our own."

* * *

When Mickey had dropped the flask of tea, it had landed on its side and come to rest not far from the Doctor's head.

Most of its contents had been spilt when it had first hit the floor but slowly, the still steaming liquid was continuing to dribble out of the flask and down onto the machinery and wirings below.

Before long vapour was beginning to rise up, turning part of the TARDIS into an impromptu sauna.

As it grew in volume and as the rate of condensation rose, the vapour found its was towards the Doctor. Still unconscious, he breathed in deeply as it swirled around his sinuses and exhaled another cloud of golden vapour.

The Sycorax leader was growling and stomping around again, this time pointing at Rose.

"The yellow girl. She has the clever blue box." Alex translated. "Therefore, she speaks for your planet."

"But she can't." Harriet protested.

"Yeah, I can." Rose countered quickly, taking a few steps forward.

"Don't you dare." Mickey told her.

"Someone's got to be the Doctor."

"They'll kill you." Harriet warned.

"Never stopped him." Rose replied as she stepped forward a little more to address the thousands of aliens before her. "I, er, I address the Sycorax according to Article Fifteen of the Shadow Proclamation." She said in as clear and confident a voice as she could muster.

As she spoke, the Sycorax leader was beginning to walk towards her. As he did, Rose carried on, trying not to tremble and show the fear that was clawing at her insides. "I command you to leave this world with all the authority of the Slitheen Parliament of Raxacoricofallapatorius, and er, the Gelth Confederacy as er, sanctioned by the Mighty Jagrafess and, oh, the Daleks! Now, leave this planet in peace!" She had shouted the last part and nervously cleared her throat, repeating quietly, "in peace."

There was a pause and everyone looked towards the Sycorax leader to see what he would do.

His fanged teeth bared, he was staring at Rose with curiosity. Then he began laughing, a raw, guttural cackle that was mimicked by the rest of the Sycorax.

For a brief moment Rose thought about joining in, that they weren't actually as hostile as they looked.

She was wrong. The Sycorax leader silenced the others with a wave of his arm before he rounded on Rose, grinning menacingly at her.

"You are very, very funny." Alex translated. "And now you're going to die."

"Leave her alone!" Harriet shouted at once, moving to lunge forwards.

"Don't touch her!" Mickey yelled.

They, alongside Peter and Alex were held back by the four Sycorax stood behind them, their arms quickly being pinned behind their backs, preventing any intervention.

"Leave her alone." Harriet called again.

But any pleas fell on deaf ears. The Sycorax leader was still focused on Rose, walking the last few steps towards her so that he was only inches away.

Rose tried not to flinch and forced herself not to grimace as she smelt the foul stench on the alien's breath.

"You can deal with me."

It was the soldier, Peter.

Without struggling against the hold the Sycorax gripping his arms had on him, he was stood, cool and collected, staring down the Sycorax leader with a hard stare. "Hey, Sycorax!" Peter yelled louder when the Sycorax leader ignored him. "I said, you can deal with me."

For a moment the Sycorax leader regarded him, shooting Peter a glare and a hiss, before he turned back to Rose.

A sudden commotion brought his and everyone else's attention back a moment later. Peter had pushed back against the Sycorax holding him, slackening the grip on his arm enough so that he could throw his elbows back into the alien's abdomen.

As the Sycorax stumbled backwards, winded, Peter quickly stepped clear of him and the surrounding aliens. Holding his hands aloft for a moment to show he wasn't going to try anything else, he cautiously approached the Sycorax leader. "I just want to talk. But you can deal with me and leave her alone." He said, indicating Rose.

The Sycorax leader hissed.

"Who are you?" Alex translated.

Peter straightened and puffed out his chest.

"Lieutenant Peter Alexander Argent of the Unified Intelligence Taskforce."

The Sycorax leader left Rose and walked over to him.

"You are a warrior?"

"You could say that, yeah." Peter shrugged. "And the only one here qualified to speak for this planet."

If Rose wasn't as scared as she was, she might have protested this. After all, she'd traveled with the Doctor across all of time and space and faced all manner of creatures and monsters. Surely she was just as qualified as this man was?

Once again, the Sycorax leader growled and pointed to the stone plinth with the pulsing button.

"One half is sold into slavery or one third dies." Alex repeated.

"Yes, you've mentioned that." Peter sighed. "But I'm here to tell you that neither of those things are going to happen."

The Sycorax leader hissed. He and Peter were now just a few paces from one another, staring the other one down.

"You will surrender, or they will die." Alex translated when the Sycorax leader finally spoke. "If you do not choose, we will. Then we will destroy you."

Peter's eyebrow arched upwards.

"What did you just say?"

"You will surrender."

"Yeah, I know that bit." Peter replied. "Or what?"

"You will die."

If the Sycorax leader had been expecting Peter to become scared, he was sorely disappointed. The young officer instead cocked his head to the side and grinned.

"Go on, then. Do it." He challenged, his tone steeling. "Because I am not going to let those people down there die, and I am certainly not allowing anyone to be handed over to the likes of you."

Rose watched the verbal rally, impressed with what she was seeing. Peter was certainly brave to be standing up to the Sycorax leader on his own without showing a hint of fear or worry for his own life. Arrogant certainly, but brave.

Just like the Doctor, she realised.

"You will die." Alex continued to translate.

Peter laughed.

"I'm still not going to surrender, so you'll have to do it." He told the Sycorax leader, his voice rising into a growl. "You'll have to kill me. Threats don't work unless you deliver."

"You will surrender."

"Nope."

Though the Sycorax leader roared his response, the translation came out in a much more calmer tone as Alex read it out.

"You will be destroyed."

"Destroy me, then." Peter replied quietly, indicating the two skeletons that were once Llewellyn and Major Blake. "You've already killed twice, what's stopping you now?"

The Sycorax leader closed the gap between them. Peter's nose wrinkled upwards as he took in the foul stench of his breath, stinking of rotted and decaying meat. He forced himself not to grimace as the alien grabbed him by the collar of his jacket and pulled him forwards, inhaling deeply.

"You smell of something else." Alex translated.

"Yeah well, you just smell." Peter countered, and was relieved for the sake of his nose when the Sycroax leader let him go and retreated back a few steps. "And if you don't kill me, then I'm not going to believe a single threat you make from now on."

Seeing the anger building on the Sycorax leader's face, Peter's confidence grew. "Of course, if I'm dead," he continued, shrugging. "Then I won't be able to call off the very big missile I'm having pointed at this ship."


	9. Chapter 9

The atmosphere had suddenly become very still.

Peter's words had floundered both the Sycorax and the humans stood behind him, neither not quite knowing how to react to his ultimatum.

Peter smiled. "Never start with your final sanction." He told the Sycorax leader. "You just leave yourself open to a counter move. Plus, you've got nowhere to go but backwards."

"You threaten to destroy us?" Alex translated as the Sycorax leader stomped around, growling and shouting.

"Royal Blue is a Bristol Bloodhound missile that I can have fired at this ship with one call." Peter replied calmly. "If I'm not heard from within six hours of making that call, they're going to fire it anyway. It'll blow this ship out of the sky in under three minutes." He paused, taking in a deep breath. "So, why don't we start the countdown now?"

Unclipping his radio from his belt and praying there would still be a signal this high up, Peter held it up to his mouth and pressed down on the call button. "Greyhound Four to White Tower, Watchtower is compromised. Repeat, Watchtower is compromised. I'm authorising protocol two zero zero. Get Royal Blue ready to fire on my command."

There was a long pause, and for a moment Peter feared it hadn't worked.

But just as he was thinking he'd have to bluff it, the voice of Karen Williams, head of communications at the base, came through to his earpiece.

"Confirming your order Lieutenant Argent, Royal Blue will be launched on your order sir." She responded.

"Good, standby." Peter replied, before taking his finger back off the call button and pointed the radio at the Sycorax leader. "Six hours and counting."

"You will call off your weapon, or you will feel pain." Alex translated as the Sycorax leader shouted, pointing at Peter.

"Ah, bigger threat to smaller threat. See what I mean? Backwards." Peter told him.

"We can force you by means of your suffering."

"Are you trying to scare me? Well, that's never going to work cos I know what does scare me, and it's not you and it's not dying. And I'll endure a lot of pain for a very long time before I give up the one thing that's keeping those down on the Earth safe. You've only got six hours, and I don't know about you but I can last that long."

The Sycorax leader marched up to Peter, stopping just short of him. "All you can offer me is the safety of the Earth. What you can't do is threaten it. You can negotiate." Peter continued.

Despite his stance, Rose heard a slight wavering in Peter's voice. His breathing had hitched. He might have said he wasn't scared and that he was prepared to die, but, for a moment at least, his emotions betrayed him.

The Sycorax leader began circling Peter, just like a shark would circle its prey.

"We will not negotiate." Alex translated.

"Then you might as well kill me," Peter replied, standing tall. "Because I'm not going to turn that missile off until the Earth is safe."

He cursed himself for flinching when the Sycorax leader lunged forward and hissed only millimetres away from his face as he began speaking.

"Did you think you were clever with your weapon?" Alex translated as the alien threw his arms out wide and began stomping around again. "We are the Sycorax, we stride the darkness. Next to us you are but a wailing child." If you are the best your planet can offer as a champion -"

"Then your world will be gutted -" The Sycorax leader continued.

"Then your world will be gutted -" Alex said, still translating

"And your people enslaved." The Sycorax leader finished, again speaking in perfect English.

Alex was the first to realise this.

"Hold on, that's English." He said, looking up from the electronic organiser he'd been using to translate the Sycorax's words.

"He's talking English." Harriet added.

Peter pointed a finger at the Sycorax leader.

"You're talking English." He said. "Since when do you talk English?"

"I would never dirty my tongue with your primitive bile." The Sycorax leader hissed back, in English.

"But that's English." Peter protested, looking back to the others. "Can you hear English?"

"Yeah, that's English." Mickey agreed.

"Definitely English." Alex said.

"I speak only Sycoraxic!" The Sycorax leader roared.

Rose took her opportunity and headed over to Peter.

"If we can hear English, then it's being translated." She whispered, more to herself than to him. "Which means it's working. Which means..." She trailed off and looked back over her shoulder at the TARDIS.

Peter turned to look too, as did everyone else.

The TARDIS doors swung open. Stood there, still in Howard's pyjamas and dressing gown, fully alert and awake, was the Doctor.

"Did you miss me?" He asked, grinning broadly.

Roaring with fury, the Sycorax leader launched his electrically charged whip at him.

With ease, however, the Doctor caught the end of it around his left hand and pulled it back, jerking it out of the Sycorax leader's hand. "You could have someone's eye out with that." He playfully scalded.

"How dare you!" The Sycorax leader began.

The Doctor strode up to him and snatched his staff out of his hands, breaking it across his knee and tossing it aside.

"You just can't get the staff." He muttered before rounding on the stunned Sycorax leader, pointing a finger at him. "Now, you, just wait. I'm busy."

The Doctor then returned to where Mickey, Harriet, and Alex were stood. "Mickey, hello!" He greeted warmly. "And Harriet Jones MP for Flydale North. Blimey, it's like This Is Your Life. Tea! That's all I needed, a good cup of tea! Superheated infusion of free radicals and tannin. Just the thing for healing the synapses."

Wandering over to Rose, he ignored the soldier stood next to her, pushing himself between them as he turned to her, lowering his voice. "Now, first thing's first. Be honest, how do I look?" He asked.

For a moment, Rose didn't quite know how to respond.

"Er, different." She eventually replied.

The Doctor frowned.

"Good different or bad different?"

"Just different." She told him.

"Am I ginger?" He asked seriously, as though this was important.

"No, you're just sort of brown." Rose replied, glancing up at his volumed mop of hair.

Disappointed, the Doctor spun on the spot and walked away from her, pacing up and down. "I wanted to be ginger. I've never been ginger." He whined before suddenly turning back to face Rose, pointing a finger at her. "And you, Rose Tyler, fat lot of good you were. You gave up on me." He said accusingly and then gasped. "Oh, that's rude. That's the sort of man I am now, am I? Rude. Rude and not ginger..."

Harriet had been staring at the Doctor as though he'd grown an extra head.

"I'm sorry. Who is this?" She asked, gawking at him.

"I'm the Doctor." The Doctor replied, as though it were obvious.

"He's the Doctor." Rose told her.

"But what happened to my Doctor, the one I met? Or is it just a title that's just passed on?"

"I'm him. I'm literally him. Same man, new face. Well, new everything." The Doctor reassured, walking over to her.

"But you can't be." Harriet whispered.

"Harriet Jones, we were trapped in Downing Street and the one thing that scared you wasn't the aliens, it wasn't the war," he told her quietly. "It was the thought of your mother being on her own."

"Oh, my God." Harriet exclaimed.

"Did you win the election?"

She smiled and shrugged.

"Landslide majority."

"If I might interrupt." The Sycroax leader growled from the opposite side of the ship.

"Yes, sorry." The Doctor said, turning to face him with a big smile on his face. "Hello, big fellow."

"Who exactly are you?"

"Well, that's the question." He began, cocking his head and laughing.

"I demand to know who you are!" The Sycorax leader roared.

"I don't know!" The Doctor roared back in an imitating manner. "See, that's the thing. I'm the Doctor, but beyond that, I just don't know. I literally do not know who I am. It's all untested." He continued, pacing around the ship. "Am I funny? Am I sarcastic? Sexy?" He shot a wink at Rose. "Right old misery? Life and soul? Right handed? Left handed? A gambler? A fighter? A coward? A traitor? A liar? A nervous wreck? I mean, judging by the evidence, I've certainly got a gob."

The stone plinth and its pulsing red button caught the Doctor's attention. He laughed and pointed at it. "And how am I going to react when I see this, a great big threatening button. A great big threatening button which must not be pressed under any circumstances, am I right?"

Seeing the Doctor make a move towards it, Peter dashed forward and intercepted him.

"Whoa, hold on a minute." He said. "You're not going anywhere near that thing, Doctor."

Confronted with the sudden appearance of this soldier, the Doctor, for the first time, regarded him.

He was very young, only twenty one at the most, tall and strong with tanned skin and dark hair. Despite his surroundings, soldier or not, he was calm and collected. There wasn't a tremor of fear in his voice nor was there a hint of it in his body language. Looking into his eyes, however, the Doctor got the distinct impression they didn't belong to the face he had. They were too bold in colour, almost a reflective and shimmering shade of grey. Wild and feral, like an animal's, the stare was hard and guarded but steady, making it obvious that this man wasn't the type to back down or be scared off from anything he had in mind.

The Doctor hadn't seen one like it in a long time, and certainly not in any human he'd ever encountered before.

"Right," he said clearing his throat. "Now let's see here."

A quick scan of the man's uniform told him most of what he needed to know. "You're a lieutenant in UNIT, good that means you're mostly up to speed." He began, eyeing the two starred insignia woven onto each of his jacket shoulders, and the UNIT badge on the left side of his pocket. "Very young though, how old are you? Twenty? Twenty one? Can't be more than a year out of Sandhurst?"

"Two and a half years, actually." He corrected, sounding slightly insulted. "I head my own detachment, one of only three Intelligence Wing and Special Ops devisions in the South of England."

"Good, then you're definitely the right man to have up here." The Doctor told him, before adding quickly, "but compared to me, you might as well be in the cadets."

What little admiration Peter had for the Doctor - and there wasn't much to begin with - was quickly replaced with insult. Folding his arms, he raised his eyebrow at him.

"Oh really?" He asked. "So, you're going to swan in and save the day, are you?"

"Well," the Doctor grinned, having completely missed the sarcasm dripping out from Peter's tone. "I try."

He did catch on when the lieutenant groaned, rolling his eyes and muttering what sounded something akin to 'typical' under his breath.

Stepping to the side, the Doctor then tried to move towards the plinth again.

"You're still not going near that thing." Peter told him, merely stepping in front of him again.

"Sorry, what was it? Lieutenant..."

"Argent."

"Lieutenant Argent, why shouldn't I go near it?"

"Because you don't know what it does," Peter told him. "And fiddling with it will not only jeopardise my operation, but the lives of two billon people down on the Earth."

"Really?" The Doctor asked, his eyebrow raising.

Peter could tell this was news to him and he found himself smiling.

"You don't know?" He asked. "And he's me thinking you know everything."

"Well, I wouldn't have guessed this was your operation. I'd have expected a major or a lieutenant colonel at the very least."

Peter tried not to take that personally.

"We did have a major up here," he began.

"Ah, good." The Doctor said cheerfully. "Where is he then?"

"That pile of bones over there," Peter replied, pointing.

"Oh."

"So, now that we've established why you've got me." Peter told him. "Please, let me get on with the negotiations."

"You're surrendering?" The Doctor asked.

"As if!" Peter scoffed, looking at the Sycorax leader. "Quite the opposite in fact."

"Well, seeing as you've got that under control, lieutenant."

The Doctor again tried to move towards the plinth, but Peter was quicker.

"Doctor, I mean it." He told him, holding his hand out to stop him, resting the other on the hilt of his gun.

"I'm the Doctor," the Doctor began, pushing against his hand.

"And I'm Lieutenant Peter Alexander Argent of the Unified Intelligence Taskforce," Peter countered. "Telling you, that if you take one more step towards that plinth without my say so, I'm going to put a bullet through your leg. Am I being clear, Doctor?"

The Doctor stared down at Peter's gun with distaste.

"Then please, share with us your plan, Peter."

"With pleasure, Doctor." Peter growled back, turning towards the Sycorax leader and addressing him as he took a few steps forward. "So, have you decided yet?" He asked. "Is your ship and your people worth a few humans?"

"Your weapon does not scare us." The Sycorax leader hissed back.

"Tell yourself that when it's ripping your ship apart and vaporising every single thing within it."

"Wait a minute, sorry," the Doctor said, stepping in. "Did he just say you've got a weapon trained on this ship?"

"Yes," Peter replied, frowning and preparing himself for an immediate insult.

"The Earth's being held hostage but you've used that very situation to create a trap for the very thing threatening it."

"And what's wrong with that?"

"Nothing," the Doctor grinned, coming over to him. "Nothing at all, it's brilliant in fact. Your idea, was it?"

Peter smirked.

"Yeah, it was."

"Brilliant!" The Doctor said again. "Very clever, sly even. Playing them, just... Just like a... Like a wolf."

Peter's smirk dropped and he visibly stiffened.

"What?" He asked, his breath suddenly hitching.

"I said just like a wolf." The Doctor repeated, oblivious to the change in Peter's demeanour.

"Yeah, why a wolf though?"

"Well they're..." The Doctor stopped when he saw that, despite his best efforts to hide it, Peter was looking terrified. "Is anything the matter?"

"N-no" Peter stuttered before managing to mask his emotions again.

For a moment the Doctor studied him.

Something had just rattled Peter, something to do with wolves, maybe? Then there was that stare too... It was like a wolf's, in both look and colour. But surely...

No. Whatever it was, it could wait.

Clearing his throat, the Doctor quickly change the subject.

"Good, then that weapon you've got, Peter. I'm going to have to ask you to turn it off."

"What!?" Peter gawked.

"I can't let you destroy an entire ship full of Sycorax."

"When they've got two billion people ready to jump to their deaths?"

"And destroying the ship would help, would it?" The Doctor asked.

"Destroy the ship, destroy the source of the control over them." Peter reasoned, pointing to the plinth.

"With yourself on board?"

"Yeah, well," Peter swallowed. "Me or two billion people, it's not a hard choice, is it?"

"That depends on which of those two billion lives your fighting for."

Peter frowned.

"All of them. I'm fighting for all of them." He insisted.

"No, you're not." The Doctor told him. "Because saving billions of people, you're doing that out of duty. Willing to sacrifice yourself to ensure the Sycorax don't get anywhere near them, you're protecting someone. So, who is it?"

"What difference does it make?" Peter asked, folding his arms.

"All the difference in the world." The Doctor whispered. "So, who is it?"

For a moment Peter didn't reply, looking away and swallowing hard.

"My best mate." He eventually replied. "I've known him all my life."

"And you don't think he'd want you safe?" The Doctor asked

"This isn't about friendship," Peter argued. "It's about doing what's right."

The Doctor was both impressed and frustrated. Peter was obviously a bright and brave young man but he was as stubborn as a mule. He wasn't going to back down and, problematically, neither was the Doctor.

"Meaning you're not going to turn off the missile?" He asked.

"Not for a very very good reason." Peter told him, emphasising every word.

"How about the safety of your friend and the other two billion people down on the Earth?"

Peter's eyebrow arched.

"That might convince me." He said. "But the people's lives come first."

"Wouldn't have it any other way." The Doctor said, smiling. He then indicated the stone plinth. "So..."

Peter didn't protest, so the Doctor took his first step towards it. But before he'd taken his second, the lieutenant's hand was clamped firmly around his arm. Looking at him, the Doctor could see he wasn't quite done yet laying down his terms.

What had immediately struck him, however, was how warm Peter's touch was, the heat radiating from the younger man's hand was high enough to seep through Howard's dressing gown and pyjamas and into the Doctor's shoulder.

The Doctor knew Peter wasn't ill, so finding he had such a temperature was strange, and neither was it the first thing that didn't quite add up to the man stood before him.

"Don't do anything stupid." Peter growled at him, his lip curled upwards. "You might have your companions and the naïve fooled into thinking you're a god, but not me."

"So, what am I to you then?" The Doctor asked, shaking himself free and walking over to the plinth.

"A bloody piece of destruction who causes an awful amount of paperwork, and bodies." Peter called after him. "And someone I don't yet quite trust with two billion lives."

"Ah but Peter, you're forgetting the part where I win you over, stop a very big missile from destroying this ship and everything onboard it, and send big fellow over there off packing. All before Christmas dinner."

"Forgive me if I'm slightly skeptical." Peter countered.

The Doctor shot him a grin as he reached the plinth and quickly opened up the base of the pillar underneath the button, revealing inside a tangle of wires and a very small dish containing a thick dark red liquid.

"Let me guess. It's some sort of control matrix, hmm?" He asked, dipping his finger in the liquid and hold it up for examination. "What's feeding it?" What've we got here?"

He hadn't even reached into the dressing gown's pocket for the sonic screwdriver when Peter provided the answer for him.

"Human blood. A positive." He told him. "Mixed with iron, I suspect."

Frowning, the Doctor licked the liquid off his finger.

"Blood? Yeah, definitely blood. Human blood. A Positive, with just a dash of iron." He muttered, before turning back to Peter. "You're not psychic by any chance, are you?"

Peter smirked and jabbed his thumb in the direction of the Sycorax leader.

"How'd you think they're controlling the people down on Earth?"

That still didn't explain how he'd been able to detect the iron in the blood that had come from the dish in the pillar. Peter couldn't have seen what was inside the plinth, only the blood that had been on the Doctor's finger when he'd held it up.

So if not by sight, then what? Had he smelt it?

From the distance Peter was, he couldn't have possibly... Unless... No, surely he wasn't...

This wasn't the time nor the place, the Doctor decided. He didn't have enough evidence to decide for himself yet. All he'd done was add another piece to the puzzle that was Peter Argent.

"Ah, but that means blood control. Blood control!" He said, turning to the Sycorax leader. "Oh, I haven't seen blood control for years. You're controlling all the A Positives. Which leaves us with a great big stinking problem." He sighed. "Because I really don't know who I am. I don't know when to stop. So if I see a great big threatening button which should never, ever, ever be pressed, then I just want to do this."

The Doctor's hand slammed down on the pulsing button before anyone could stop him.


	10. Chapter 10

Everyone had realised what the Doctor was planning to do a moment too late.

"No!" Rose and Harriet simultaneously cried.

They, Alex, and Mickey had lunged forward, as though thinking they could have stopped the Doctor in the split second between him finishing speaking and his hand slamming down on the button.

"You killed them!" Alex cried.

"What do you think, Peter?" The Doctor asked, turning to the lieutenant. "Are they dead?"

Peter had been the only one not to react. Instead, he was stood staring at the Doctor, frozen with mixture of shock and fear caked across his face.

Recovering, his jaw tensed so tightly shut it looked ready to snap.

"For your sake, Doctor," he growled through gritted teeth. "They better not be."

Reaching for his radio, Peter continued to glare at the Doctor even as he pressed down on the call button. "Greyhound Four to White Tower," he called in, trying to keep his voice calm. "Patch me through to Greyhound Twelve."

"But sir -" The voice of Karen Williams began, speaking via his earpiece.

"Just do it!" Peter snapped back, hints of panic emerging into his tone as a result.

There was a pause, followed by a soft click and short buzzing sound as the call was transferred. After another tense moment of radio silence the unmistakable voice of Stefan Amell came through to his earpiece.

"Peter? Peter is that you?"

"You're alive! You okay?" Peter gasped. "What about the others? Those on the roof with you?"

"Yeah, about that," Stefan replied. "How did we all get up here?"

* * *

When the Doctor had hit the button atop the stone plinth, all two billion humans with the blood group A Positive had been released from the blood control the Sycorax had placed upon them.

As a last burst of blue light crackled around each of their heads, they had snapped to their senses and at last regained control of their thoughts and movements, all of them immediately backing away from the edges of the structures they suddenly found themselves at.

Stefan had been one of the first on the roof of the White Tower to notice the colossal alien ship hovering over most of London. Letting slip a few choice words and quickly questioning how and why he'd even ended up where he was to see such as sight, a message soon came through to his earpiece, telling him he was wanted by perhaps the one man who could provide some answers.

"It's a long story," Peter had told him. "Basically, you can put it down to bad blood. Look, just get back down to the others. They can explain everything."

"You're not with them?" Stefan asked, beginning to walk towards the door leading down into the Tower.

Even though his friend could not see it, Peter winced and ran his hand through his hair.

"Not quite, no."

Stefan stopped dead and frowned.

"Peter Alexander Argent, where exactly are you?"

There was a pause, as though Peter was reluctant to answer.

"Look up." He eventually replied.

Look up? But the was nothing above Stefan except clear blue skies and an enormous alien...

"Oh," he groaned. "Tell me you're not..."

"Yeah, I am." Peter replied, wincing again. "And to be honest mate, where else would I be?"

"I know, it's starting to become the beginnings of a bad joke." Stefan replied dryly.

For the first time, the Doctor saw Peter give a genuine smile.

Talking with his friend had, much to the Doctor's expectation, cooled Peter's fiery temperament and rash behaviour considerably.

Peter stopped smiling, however, when he caught the Doctor's eye, as though the Time Lord's presence was a reminder that he still had a job to do.

"Okay, I need you to go and find the others," he told Stefan over the radio. "Let them know we've got a Code Nine situation up here and that Blue Eagle has landed."

"Got it." Stefan replied.

"Also," Peter quickly added, pausing as he glanced the Doctor's way again. "Stand down Royal Blue, we've got things handled up here."

"What about the aliens?"

"Oh trust me," Peter replied, his tone steeling as he glowered at the Sycorax leader. "Their skull helmets are going to be the only things left of them by the time I'm done."

The Sycorax leader hissed at this but Peter ignored it. "I want it on record that Major Blake and Llewellyn died on their feet trying to save this planet, and that they were murdered in cold blood. So, at the very least the Sycorax are accountable for that."

"Yeah well give them one from me." Stefan replied, making his way back down to the basement with the rest of his now quite bemused colleagues.

Cutting off the call and attaching his radio back onto his belt, Peter rounded on the Sycorax leader, ready to carry out his promise.

The Doctor, however, spoke first.

"You got them to turn off the missile?" He asked Peter.

"A deal is a deal." He replied with a shrug. "My team will get them to shut it down."

"Right, good."

Before Peter could change his mind, the Doctor aimed the sonic screwdriver at his earpiece, which was promptly destroyed in a burst of tiny electrical sparks.

"Agh!" Peter cried, clutching both of his ears as a high pitched burst of noise tore through his eardrums. Tearing the device out of his ear and leaving it to dangle over his shoulder, he tried to shake the din out of his head as he rounded on the Doctor. "What was that for!?" He growled.

"Insurance." The Doctor told him in a serious tone as he came over to him. "I don't like weapons."

All Peter had heard was mumbling against a persistent ringing noise.

"What?" He asked, shaking his head and rubbing his ears.

The Doctor didn't repeat himself. Instead he frowned and looked down at the sonic screwdriver.

It wasn't a loud device by any means, and the earpiece blowing up may have been a bit of a shock, but it was by no means a noisy experience.

"Sorry, sensitive ears?" He questioned.

"You could say that." Peter replied, finally able to hear again what was being said, but failing to notice that the Doctor was watching him a little too carefully.

He'd done it again, the Time Lord realised. An unearthly gaze, a super nose, a feverish temperature, and now sensitive ears, just who and what was Peter Argent? Was he even human? Or was it that the Doctor had simply not been around enough of them to realise how different they were from one another?

With his hearing back to normal, Peter straighten himself and looked towards the Sycorax leader. "So in the end, he really didn't have anything on us?" He asked the Doctor.

"Nope. Blood control is just a cheap bit of voodoo." He explained. "It's like hypnosis. You can hypnotise someone to walk like a chicken or sing like Elvis. You can't hypnotise them to death. Survival instinct's too strong. It scares the pants off you, but that's as far as it goes."

"Blood control was just one form of conquest." The Sycorax leader growled. "I can summon the armada and take this world by force."

"Really?" Peter asked, smirking and sounding unconvinced. "I think you've told enough lies for one day."

"Is he lying?" The Doctor asked, sounding surprised.

"Yeah, I mean he's pretty good, and I couldn't tell before he started talking in English," Peter shrugged. "But here's the thing. There's not a lot I'm great at in life, but I have one skill, call it a 'superpower.' I can tell when anyone is lying, and he is."

"You can?" The Doctor questioned, now becoming seriously convinced he'd only hit the surface of who and what Peter was truly was. He'd narrowed it down to a few possibilities now, but he still needed more to go on before he decided. "Well, Peter Alexander Argent, you are full of surprises. Knowing when someone is crying wolf? I wouldn't know how to do that."

Peter didn't make it clear whether or not he'd caught onto the Doctor's tone and deliberate choice of words, this time he hadn't flinched. Instead he shrugged it off and turned back to face the Sycorax leader.

"So, what are we going to do with you?" He asked, his tone darkening. "See, I was irritated before. But after your little show, I'm verging on getting mad, and trust me that isn't an advisable mood to get me into."

"Or what?" The Sycorax leader hissed back.

Peter looked to the Doctor.

"Doctor? How would these Sycorax solve a disagreement?"

"Well," the Doctor said, considering. "Sycorax have pride, honour, and some respect for the rules of war. Leadership is earned by trials of strength and combat. They wear skull helmets to impress their enemies, and red robes as a sign of leadership. They take trophies of body parts such as bones or skin or hair from conquered races."

"So hand to hand combat then?" Peter asked.

The Doctor nodded and shrugged, before working out Peter's intentions.

"Wait, you're not going to..."

But Peter had already stepped forward, towards the Sycorax leader. Eyeing him and the surrounding Sycorax, he took in a deep breath.

"All right, who do I have to fight to get you all to leave?"

A raucous laughter echoed through the ship, led by the Sycorax leader.

"You stand as this world's champion?" He cackled.

The Doctor cut Peter off before he could reply.

"No, he doesn't."

"Yes I do." Peter called back before turning to face the Doctor. "Doctor, what are you doing?"

"What are you doing?" The Doctor whispered. "You can't face off against a Sycorax warrior, no human can. They're far too strong."

"And Time Lords are the universe's strongest race, are they?" Peter countered. "I know how to handle myself and I am putting an end to this right now."

The Doctor had a thousand arguments to this but none made their way out. He was never going to stop Peter, the younger man was far too stubborn, but neither did he really think it was the best course of action to stop him. There was something about Peter that reassured the Doctor that he'd be fine, and it was nothing to do with his strange behaviour or unique set of skills.

Behind the rash, temperamental exterior of his bold grey eyes, the Doctor could see intelligence. It wasn't of the academic or scientific kind, but of the sort you got through life, the kind that told him Peter knew what he could and couldn't do.

Peter knew he could do this.

Having won the argument, Peter removed his jacket and tie, leaving him in just the khaki shirt underneath, exposing his strong and toned arms. Wrapped around his left forearm was a tattoo, just peaking out below the shirt's shoulder line.

It was a strange design, two plain back bands that wound all the way around his bicep. The top band was slightly bigger than the other, with a small patch of skin between the inkings.

It took a moment for the Doctor to realise that he'd seen it before, but where? Where had he seen that design before?

Not on Earth, he was sure of that.

Frustratingly, like the rest of the information he was collecting about Peter, this clue was unwilling to piece itself together with the others inside his head.

The Doctor was brought from his thoughts by Rose as she nudged him forwards, towards the edge of the galleries that skirted the centre of the ship, the Sycorax and their captives having all gathered around as the Sycorax leader and Peter stepped out to face one another.

"So," Peter called over to his opponent. "How do you wanna do this?"

In response, the Sycorax leader drew out a very large sword from a sheath on his belt and swung it around his head wildly and with great strength. "Ah, old school." Peter said, extending out his empty arms. "Do I get one too?"

The Sycorax leader grudgingly nodded to one of his nearest comrades and a sword was tossed Peter's way, landing with a thump rather than a clatter on the sandy floor at his feet. Picking it up, Peter tossed it between his hands for a moment as he got a feel for the heavy steel weapon.

The designer had put everything into its weight and nothing into its looks, yet miraculously the sword was balanced enough to be used as intended and not just as an awkwardly shaped club. Given its length and weight it felt slightly clumsy to Peter, but he was grateful for the grip that the grooved brown leather hilt gave him.

This wasn't a sword intended to be used quickly, but rather, as the Doctor had said, as a test of strength. But looking at the species that would use it, this wasn't a surprise.

Peter smiled. He wasn't some big, dumb, clumsy Sycorax. Regardless of his sword's design he would make it work for him.

"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" The Doctor called over.

"Course I do." Peter called back, his lips not even twitching as he pointed at the tip of his sword. "The pointy end goes into the other guy, right?"

"Someone thinks he's funny." Rose muttered.

Her voice had barely been above a whisper, with only the Doctor close enough at hand to hear her, so she was surprised when Peter turned and shot her a smirk.

"I try my best, Miss Tyler." He called, casually resting his sword against his shoulder.

"How did you -"

"Know who you were?" He cut in, shrugging. "You've been on file for a while now. Ever since the Slitheen incident."

Rose squirmed, trying not to look at the Doctor, Harriet, or Mickey. They had all played their part that day, as had UNIT, but she hadn't stuck around for the aftermath, which included clearing up the ruins of Downing Street.

"Yeah, sorry about the mess." She said. "Were you there?"

"Yeah, could say we've been living parallel lives." Peter replied, glancing at the Doctor. "Given our common acquaintance."

Turning on his heel, Peter put himself just a few meters away from the Sycroax leader and steeled himself, ready and prepared for a fight. He copied the Sycorax leader as the alien went down on one knee, his sword held pointed downward into the ground, and matched his glare.

"For the planet?" The Sycorax leader hissed.

"For the planet." Peter growled back.


	11. Chapter 11

The Sycorax leader made the first move, charging forward like a bull would towards its matador, his sword already in the process of being swung towards his opponent.

But Peter was no longer there.

Easily and with lightning fast reactions, he had rolled out of the way and out of the path of the alien, getting to his feet and turning back around, all before the Sycorax leader had time to realise he'd moved at all.

"Yeah, you're going to have to be a hell of a lot quicker if you wanna fight me." He said as the Sycorax leader skidded to a halt and rounded on him, his expression thunderous and his mouth curled into a snarl.

They exchanged a few clashes with neither gaining the advantage or disadvantage. But any worries that the Doctor had expressed about Peter not being strong enough were short lived.

No matter how hard or ferociously the Sycorax leader swung his sword, Peter was countering every blow with ease. When his and the Sycorax leader's swords locked with one another, Peter merely slide his down the Sycorax leader's and knocked the alien off balance with a shove.

The Sycorax leader stumbled backwards, and nearly fell against the TARDIS, but managed to recover himself. For a moment he stood staring at Peter, as though thinking for the first time that he might not win.

Peter, on the other hand, looked cool and collected. "A bit stronger too." He said, smirking.

As Rose watched the fighting continue - Peter continuing to toy with the Sycorax leader as they exchanged glancing blows - she was becoming more and more curious about how Peter was able to fight with such ease. Did they still teach sword fighting in the military? Rose doubted it.

She doubted he was self taught too, Peter was looking like he was just having a lark about rather than putting any actual technique into his moves. He was just adapting to and countering against whatever the Sycorax leader was throwing at him.

The two fighters made their way back over to the TARDIS, and this time it was Peter with his back up against the ship. Running out of room to move, he could only block the attacks being thrown his way by the Sycorax leader, who had seemed to realise that the fight was at last going his way.

Being backed into a corner, however, wasn't a problem for Peter.

Pushing the Sycorax leader away from him, he used the panels of the TARDIS itself to pull himself up onto the ship's roof. "Well, he's me thinking you a least had some agility." He called, looking down with glee at his seething opponent.

With a roar, the Sycorax leader grabbed the combat crossbow attached to his belt. It was already loaded so there was less than half a second before the metal tipped bolt was flying up towards him.

Peter had been caught off guard, but what he did next would have been impressive even if he'd had all the preparation in the world.

Catching the bolt swiftly and singlehandedly, he stopped it a moment before it slammed into his chest.

Peter winced as he felt the jagged metal arrowhead slice across his palm, but knew it could have been much worse if he'd been just a second slower. Taking a deep breath, and keeping the bolt held aloft as he peeped around it, he looked down at the Sycorax leader. "Really?" He asked, sounding unimpressed. "You didn't think I didn't see that coming?"

"You are a coward. You do not fight me!" The Sycorax leader hissed, pointing accusingly at him.

"Oh trust me, I'm not afraid to fight." Peter replied, tossing away the bolt. "I'm just waiting for you to give me something to fight against."

Glancing down at his hand he saw the bloodied gash stretched out across his palm, a few trickles of blood dripping from it and onto the TARDIS' roof. It didn't worry him, he could already feel the skin around it tightening as it started to heal. In a few moments there'd be nothing to worry about.

"Then prove yourself." The Sycorax leader challenged.

Looking back down at him, Peter took his sword back into both hands.

"You want me to give you a fight?" He asked, his eyes narrowing. "Okay, but don't say I didn't give you a chance to back out."

Rose's jaw dropped as she watched Peter launch himself into a backwards somersault, carrying him over the Sycorax leader and landing with perfection.

The Sycorax leader charged him again, and this time there was no messing around. The clashes were getting harder and faster with every blow delivered, any technique that may have once existed having been throw out in favour of brute strength.

"H-how is he even able to -" Rose began, unable to take her eyes off Peter, wincing as he delivered a blow to the Sycorax leader's abdomen with the crook of his elbow, badly winding the alien.

"Keep up? Match a Sycorax warrior's inhuman strength?" The Doctor said, his expression growing serious.

"Yeah, how is he doing it?" Rose asked, looking up at him. "Don't tell me it's just 'cause he's a soldier?"

"No, it's not." The Doctor muttered, passing her Peter's jacket and tie and digging out the sonic screwdriver from Howard's dressing gown pocket. "As I said, matching a Sycorax in combat isn't something humans should be able to do."

Rose nodded and then the penny dropped.

"No," she gasped. "You don't think..."

"I don't know," The Doctor whispered as he subtly pointed the sonic screwdriver at Peter. "But I think it's time I found out exactly who and what Peter Argent is."

It was a curious thing, and only those who knew of the connection could have spotted it, but the moment the sonic screwdriver buzzed into life Peter's head whizzed around to face it.

The momentary distraction cost him dearly as the Sycorax leader delivered a harsh blow to the side of his head with the hilt of his sword.

Rose had already worked out what had caused the lapse in Peter's concentration.

"Did he just hear that?" She asked, pointing at the sonic screwdriver.

"He did, and I didn't finish my scan." The Doctor tutted, sounding disappointed.

Rose swatted down his arm as she saw him about to attempt to scan Peter again.

"Don't!" She hissed. "Do it again and he could lose his head!"

Momentarily blinded from the force of the blow delivered, Peter stumbled away from the Sycorax leader. He could hear the alien coming after him and knew he didn't have time to recover his sight before the killer strike would be delivered.

Rose turned away, unable to watch as the sword came swinging down towards Peter's head...

The sound of metal clashing with metal came, not metal hacking into flesh, and she looked up to see Peter had countered the attack. His eyes were still firmly clenched shut, but that wasn't stopping him from continuing to fight.

He was, quite literally, fighting blind.

Next to her, Rose heard the Doctor muttering to himself.

"Okay, senses and reflexes that are way too sharp. Unparalleled strength. High body temperature. That tattoo."

"Tattoo?" Rose asked, staring at the marking on Peter's arm for the first time. "What about it?"

"Not an Earth design." He replied.

"Oh my god." Rose gasped. "So what is he then?"

"I don't know, but I'm close. I just need that final thing, that one last clue that will put it all into place."

Peter was winning now, and on the verge of victory. The Sycorax leader was too slow and thuggish to try and keep up and it was tiring him to attempt to do so.

Knocking away the alien's sword, Peter daringly tossed away his own with it and put up his fists defensively, just like a sparring boxer would. When the Sycorax leader swung a punch at him, it was very easy for him to grab hold of the striking arm and hold it in place before spreading out his opponent's legs with his knee.

With the Sycorax leader stood stooped before him, Peter used his shoulder to launch himself up and over his head. Wrapping his legs around the alien's midsection, he pulled down hard and fast.

The two came cartwheeling forward, with the Sycorax leader landing with a thud on his back and Peter sat with his legs now pinning him down by the neck and abdomen. They stayed as they were for a moment, locked in a struggle for the advantage.

It was the Sycorax leader who got it.

Grabbing hold of Peter's leg, he pulled it to his mouth and sank his razored teeth through the trouser material and into the flesh underneath. With a cry Peter pulled back, losing what grip he had on his opponent. He kicked away the alien, who tumbled backwards, giving him enough time to regain his feet.

Within seconds, however, the Sycorax leader was charging at him again.

Colliding into Peter with the force of a train, the two came crashing down and landed in a heap on the sandy floor, dust kicking up around them as they scrapped.

Pinning the Sycorax leader down once again, Peter pressed down a single hand around the alien's throat.

"Ah ah ah, feel that?" He hissed, leaning in so those watching couldn't properly see or hear what he was doing. "Know what they are?"

Feeling the razored edge of claws poking against his jugular, the Sycorax leader was very careful not to nod too vigorously. "I thought you might," Peter told him. "So I think you better surrender before I use them."

"Yes," the Sycorax leader wheezed, choking as Peter's grip tightened.

"Good. Now get off this planet and never come back!" Peter snarled, releasing his grip and pushing himself away as he got to his feet.

The speed at which the Sycorax leader also got up surprised everyone. What he did next horrified them.

The concealed dagger already in hand, the alien grabbed hold of Peter by the collar of his shirt and plunged it deep into his abdomen.

Peter made no noise as he felt the metal slice through his skin with little effort and dig straight in. The breath had been knocked right out of him and, even as he fell to the ground in a heap, even as a searing burning sensation flared up his torso, he didn't make a sound.

The Sycorax leader was stomping around, victoriously roaring and whipping his cheering comrades into a frenzy. He ignored the cries of protest and horror coming from the gathered humans, even as Rose and the Doctor made their way over to the fallen Peter.

He had rolled onto his side so that he was facing away from them, his body curved in and around the dagger. Dropping to her knees as she reached him, Rose paled when she saw that the weapon was buried up to the hilt in his stomach.

"It's okay, you're going to be okay." She immediately soothed.

As gently as she could, she rolled Peter onto his back.

There wasn't a lot of blood, the dagger was acting as a plug for the moment. Peter was still alive and conscious, but his eyes were lined with tears and he was having to take big, long drawn out breaths in order to feign off the pain and shock from overwhelming him.

"Pull... out the... dagger," he said between gasps, but so quietly that Rose barely heard what he'd said.

"What?" She asked, frowning.

"The knife, pull it out."

From somewhere in the back of her mind, Rose knew that when someone had been stabbed, and the knife was still in them, under no circumstances should anyone but those medically trained remove it. The victim could bleed out within seconds, something she didn't want to be responsible for now.

"No, it's safer for it to stay in for now." She told him. "But don't worry, we'll get you to a hospital soon."

Peter groaned frustratingly.

"Miss Tyler, I don't need a hospital," he told her through gritted teeth. "What I need is for you to pull the dagger out, and for you not to argue with me."

Again Rose frowned. Either Peter was kidding himself, or perhaps the Doctor's observations of him had not yet expanded far enough.

Speaking of the Doctor, he'd followed Rose over and had been stood observing until now, before crouching down besides Rose as he shifted his gaze between the dagger and Peter.

"Now then," he said, sounding very relaxed but at the same time keeping his voice low as he pulled out the sonic screwdriver and began scanning him. "You don't want to be pulling that out. It's cut all the way into your spleen, under normal circumstances you'd probably bleed out in just under eight minutes."

"That your advice as a doctor, is it?" Peter growled back. "Well, these aren't... normal circumstances. So pull the dagger out!"

The pain was starting to overcome him now. With a determined grunt he tried to reach for the dagger himself, failing and only making it worse by disturbing the blade.

The Doctor smiled.

"Now why are you so determined to get that dagger out?" He asked curiously. Peter didn't answer him, his breathing becoming laboured and more frequent. Tutting, the Doctor tilted his head and sighed with impatience. "Peter, I'm not going to pull it out until you tell me. Why do you want the dagger out of you?"

"Because I'm already healing!" Peter cried out, his head shooting up to face him.

It wasn't his words that was making the Doctor smile and Rose gawk. His ordinarily grey eyes were now bright yellow, glowing with a burning ferocity. To Rose they looked wild and feral, like an animal's. Actually, just like a...

"Wolf." The Doctor whispered. "You're a wolf."

All the clues had finally slotted into place. It all made perfect sense now.

For the first time, Peter looked terrified.

"Oh my god." He whispered, realised what he'd revealed and turned his head away, clenching his eyes shut.

"No, this is good!" The Doctor told him. "Means it's safe to do this."

Without hesitation he pulled out the dagger.

Peter's cry of pain got stuck in his throat, but he didn't start bleeding out. The wound, just visible through the cut in his shirt was closing up, new skin already replacing the patch that had been lost.

"Ah! Couldn't have done that a bit more gently, could you?" He winced as the Doctor and Rose helped him sit up.

"Well you did want it out." The Doctor replied before looking over to where Harriet, Alex, and Mickey were stood. "He's okay, had the sense to wear a stab proof vest." He called over, patting Peter right on the spot where he'd been stabbed.

"Yeah," Peter grunted, his jaw clenching shut. "Stab proof."

"What is this, witchcraft?" The Sycorax leader hissed.

Having noticed that Peter wasn't dead, or at least dying, he'd silence the other Sycorax and watched with growing bemusement and frustration.

"Nope, no witchcraft going on here." The Doctor replied, standing up. "Just one very stubborn soldier."

Trying to get back up onto his feet, Peter was hindered by his still healing stomach, and had to lean on Rose for support, nearly taking her down with him as she helped him sit back down.

The Doctor looked back over his shoulder, smiling. "See?" He told the Sycorax leader. "Just won't give up."

"Then he can fight." The Sycorax leader hissed back, prompting another roar from his comrades. "Our challenges are to the death!"

"Well, yeah, he could, yeah, he could do that, of course he could. But why? Look at him. That soldier over there. Consider how many times you're going to have to knock him down before he'll stay down." The Doctor pointed out, pacing up and down. "Now, take someone like me. I've got no idea who I am, let alone if I even know how to fight. I mean look at me," he said, gesturing his very skinny frame. "Not exactly built for it, am I?"

"What is your point?" The Sycorax leader growled.

"My point is," the Doctor said, running over to where Peter's sword had landed, picking it up. "That's not going to stop me challenging you."

General laugher rose up, reverberating all around the shop. "Oh, that struck a chord." The Doctor said, looking all around him before turning back to the Sycorax leader. "Am I right that the sanctified rules of combat still apply?"

Throwing his dressing gown over to Rose, he took the Sycorax leader's silence as confirmation they did. "So, do you accept my challenge?" He asked. "Or are you just a cranak pel casacree salvak?"

Whatever the Doctor had said in Sycoraxic was clearly an insult and had made up the Sycorax leader's mind.

At his request another sword was thrown his way and he once again knelt down across from his opponent, the Doctor copying him just like Peter had done.

There was no speaking of what was at stake this time. It didn't need saying.


	12. Chapter 12

The Doctor started first, engaging with the Sycorax leader in a series of clashes.

But he wasn't as strong as Peter, so when they locked swords with one another it was the Sycorax leader who was easily able to push his opponent off balance.

Exchanging a worried glance with Rose and Peter as the surrounding Sycorax jeered and laughed, the Doctor tried again to land a strike.

Ducking below the sword of the Sycorax leader, however, he lost his balance and fell over.

"Look out!" Rose shouted.

Spreading his legs and shuffling backwards saved the Doctor from being struck, before he managed to get back up onto his feet.

"Oh, yeah, that helps. Wouldn't have thought of that otherwise, thanks." He called back.

Exchanging more clashes, the Sycorax leader managed to elbow him in the stomach and send him stumbling away. The Doctor recovered in enough time to avoid being struck as the Sycorax leader chased after him, and took the opportunity to change tactic.

Retreating up a tunnel, he hit a button on the wall as he ran past it. "Bit of fresh air?"

Sunlight spilt in through a narrow doorway, which the Doctor and the pursuing Sycorax leader disappeared through, a few of the Sycorax following after them.

Pulling Peter onto his feet, Rose gave chase alongside the others.

Emerging out onto a flat, bare scrap of land with a dizzying sheer drop on three sides and the rocky hull of the ship behind them, everyone saw that the Doctor was now being driven back towards the edge.

Struck on the nose with a swipe from the Sycorax leader's arm, he held up a hand to stop Rose and Peter as they started forwards. "Stay back!" He yelled. "Invalidate the challenge and he wins the planet."

"You intervened in mine!" Peter called back.

"Everyone thought you were dying, so it was allowed!" He replied whilst avoiding further strikes from the Sycorax leader.

"Oh well, sorry for being alive then!"

"That's okay!"

What wasn't okay was how the fight was going for the Doctor.

Knocked to the ground and landing on his back, his head and shoulders actually dangling over the edge of the ship, he saw the Sycorax leader's sword swing down towards him...

Still holding the sword, the Doctor's severed hand plummeted to the Earth below and disappeared from sight.

The now one handed Doctor looked up at the Sycorax leader with surprise. "You cut my hand off." He said, more surprised than horrified.

"Ya! Sycorax!" The Sycorax leader cried, cheering and waving his sword about.

He stopped when he saw the Doctor get back up onto his feet.

"And now I know what sort of man I am. I'm lucky." The Doctor said, smiling. "Because quite by chance I'm still within the first fifteen hours of my regeneration cycle, which means I've got just enough residual cellular energy to do this."

Lifting up the stump were his hand had once been, there was a last whisper of the recurring golden vapour as a new hand grew out of the fleshy lump.

Stood watching with the others, their mouths hanging open, Rose leaned in towards Peter.

"Can you do that?" She whispered.

"Urg, no." He replied, shuddering. "That's just creepy."

"Witchcraft." The Sycorax leader hissed at the Doctor.

"Time Lord." He replied.

"Doctor!" Rose called, grabbing a sword from the belt of a nearby Sycorax and tossing it over to him.

"Oh, so I'm still the Doctor, then?" He asked, catching it and expertly twirling it around.

"No arguments from me!"

Smiling, the Doctor turned back to face the Sycorax leader.

"Want to know the best bit?" He asked, adopting a old western American accent. "This new hand? It's a fighting hand!"

As the fighting commenced again, it was obvious that the Doctor's new hand was much better suited to combat than his old one. With every clash exchanged he would gain more ground and advantage, pushing the Sycorax leader further and further towards the edge of the ship.

Disarming his opponent when the Sycorax leader missed hitting him and got his sword stuck in the ground, the Doctor grabbed hold of it and thumped the alien sharply in the abdomen with the hilt of both weapons.

The Sycorax leader fell to the ground, landing just as the Doctor had done, with his hand and shoulders hanging off the ship's jagged edge.

Leaning over him, the Doctor hovered the tip of his sword perilously close to the Sycorax's throat. "I win." He said quietly.

"Then kill me." The Sycorax leader hissed.

"I'll spare your life if you'll take this champion's command. Leave this planet, and never return. What do you say?"

"Yes."

"Swear on the blood of your species." The Doctor growled, jabbing the end of his sword up against the Sycorax's throat.

"I swear." He hissed back.

"There we are then." The Doctor told him, his demeanour returning to a cheerful one. "Thanks for that. Cheers big fellow."

"Bravo!" Harriet cried as the Doctor left the Sycorax leader and began walking back towards them, sticking both swords into the ground as he went.

"That says it all. Bravo!" Rose added, running over to the Doctor with Howard's dressing gown.

"Ah, not bad for a man in his jim-jams." He said as she helped him put it on. "Very Arthur Dent. Now, there was a nice man. Hold on, what have I got in here?"

From out of one of the dressing gown's pockets he pulled out a small, orange coloured piece of fruit. "A satsuma." He laughed as he and Rose continued to make their way back over to the others. "Ah, that friend of your mothers. He does like his snacks doesn't he? But doesn't that just sum up Christmas? You go through all those presents and right at the end, tucked away at the bottom, there's always one stupid old satsuma. Who wants a satsuma?"

With their backs turned, neither he nor Rose saw the Sycorax leader get back up, grab his sword and begin running towards the Doctor's back.

Without hesitation, the Doctor threw the satsuma at the hull of the ship, hitting a small, partially concealed button just next to the door.

The ground beneath the Sycorax leader swiftly retracted in on itself, leaving nothing for the alien to stand on. With a final scream, his sword still clasped in his hand, he tumbled towards the city below.

His expression stony serious, the Doctor didn't look back. "No second chances." He said. "I'm that sort of a man."

* * *

The Sycorax were silent and vigilant as the Doctor led Rose, Peter, and the others back into the ship, stopping as he reached the TARDIS. "By the ancient rites of combat," he called out to the gathered Sycorax, authority and steel in his tone. "I forbid you to scavenge here for the rest of time. And when you go back to the stars and tell others of this planet, when you tell them of it's riches, it's people, it's potential. When you talk of the Earth, then make sure that you tell them this. It is defended!"

Disappearing with the others and the TARDIS in a flash of blue light, he was transported off the ship.

"Where are we?" Rose asked, staring all around at the ordinary London backstreet they now found themselves in.

"We're just off Bloxom Road." Mickey cheered. "We're just round the corner, we did it!"

"Wait a minute, wait a minute." The Doctor cautioned, staring up at the Sycorax ship.

Slowly but surely, the colossal rock structure began to gain altitude and leave the Earth.

"Go on, my son! Oh, yeah!" Mickey called out, punching the air with his fist.

"Yeah! Don't come back!" Rose added.

"It is defended!"

After sharing a hug with Mickey, Rose ran at Peter and wrapped her arms around the lieutenant before he could protest.

"Realised I never thanked you. You know, for stepping in and saving me." She said as she released him. "And for helping the Doctor too. He'd never say it himself, so I will. Thank you."

Peter's lips twitched into the smallest of smiles. For the first time he was looking tired, as though the day's events were finally starting to catch up with him. But he was also looking modest too.

It suited him, Rose thought. It took him away from the uniform he was wearing and brought him closer to the man wearing it.

"Just doing my job." He told her, before he laughed. "I mean, literally, that is my job. Today is my job, it's what I do."

"An alien who goes around saving the day? I know the type." Rose joked. "But you never said, what are you exactly?"

The warmth on Peter's face vanished and Rose saw hostility and clinical coldness seep into his expression.

Whatever had transpired up on the Sycorax ship, whatever secrets had emerged, whatever friendships had been forged, it was clear he wanted it all to be quickly reburied and forgotten.

"Miss Tyler," he said in a very cool tone. "You may be the Doctor's companion but that doesn't give you the right to snoop into people's private affairs, am I being clear?"

"Perfectly." Rose replied, just as coolly.

"And speaking of my job," Peter added. "I have work to do. So, if you'll excuse me."

As Rose watched him walk away, returning to Harriet and her aid and quickly engaging in a serious looking conversation, she still couldn't help but wonder perhaps what was the biggest question of the day. Just who was Peter Argent?

The Doctor had said wolf, but what did that mean? Werewolf? A term for some distant lupine species?

Rose didn't know, but she was determined of two things. She was going to find out and, in order to do so, she wasn't going to let Peter out of her sight.

"Doctor," she said quietly, approaching the Time Lord and pulling him aside. "What are we going to do about -"

"Our new friend?" He asked, not even bothering to keep his voice down.

"Shush!" Rose hissed, glancing cautiously over at Peter.

"Oh, Rose. He can hear far quieter things than a whisper over much greater distances than a London backstreet. I reckon he'll be listening in right now, if he's curious enough to."

"He is?" She asked. "What is he then? You said wolf, what does that mean? What are you going to do about him?"

"Nothing." He told her.

"Nothing?"

"Nothing." He repeated. "He's not a threat, he's careful about hiding what he is from people. Yep, he's got things under control. We can leave him be."

The Doctor stopped talking because Harriet was coming within earshot of them, a huge grin on her face.

"My Doctor." She greeted fondly.

"Prime Minister." He replied, embracing her with a warm hug.

"Absolutely the same man." She said as they parted, before pointing at the patch of sky where the Sycorax ship had once been. "Are there many more out there?

"Oh, not just Sycorax. Hundreds of species." The Doctor told her. "Thousands of them. And the human race is drawing attention to itself. Every day you're sending out probes and messages and signals. This planet's so noisy. You're getting noticed more and more. You'd better get used to it."

"Rose!" Jackie Tyler cried as she came running down the street, her arms held wide open.

"Mum!" Rose called back, running to meet her.

"Oh, my God! You did it, Rose! Oh!" Jackie cried, enveloping her daughter in a bone crushing hug.

"Oh, talking of trouble." The Doctor chuckled.

Leaving the slightly paled Harriet Jones with the thought of the thousands of potential alien encounters that may now occur, he wondered over to the three humans.

"You did it too! It was the tea." Rose was telling her mother as she pointed at the Doctor. "Fixed his head."

"That was all I needed, cup of tea." He said with a smile.

"I said so." Jackie tutted.

"Look at him." Rose exclaimed.

"Is it him, though? Is it really the Doctor?" Her mother asked before gasping as she saw Harriet Jones stood just a short distance away. "Oh, my God, it's the bleeding Prime Minister!"

"Come here, you." The Doctor told her, holding out his arms.

Jackie fell into his embrace, followed by Rose and Mickey as they all shared in the hug.

"Are you better?" Jackie asked.

"I am, yeah." The Doctor replied.

Watching the group take such comfort in one another's presence made an uncomfortable twang rise up in Peter's heart. The Doctor, his companion and her family had such a bond that resonated with the loved ones he himself had.

Forgetting he'd even had it until returning back to Earth, and with his earpiece ruined thanks to the Doctor's intervention, Peter dug out his mobile phone from his trousers back pocket.

The line only rang twice before Stefan's frantic voice replied.

"Peter? Where are you, are you okay? We saw the ship start to leave and -"

"Calm down, I'm not taking a trip into space anytime soon." Peter reassured. "We're all down and safe, just off the corner of Bloxom Road."

"Okay, wait right there. I'm sending people out to come and get you."

"No, wait." Peter said quickly, and with more of a waver in his voice than he would have liked. "Can you... I mean, can you come? Just you?"

"Of course I can mate."

Peter smiled. Stefan never questioned the why, and never made anything worse by questioning or nagging or pushing. He would just do it. That was why he was the only person Peter wanted to see right now. He needed to talk and Stefan could be counted on to listen.

"Take my car, and tell Kensington to send the usual guys to pick up the Prime Minister."

"What about the Doctor?" Stefan asked.

Glancing at the Time Lord, Peter shrugged.

"When have we ever been able to bring him in to do the paperwork?"

"True," Stefan muttered. "But you're okay though?"

"I'm fine." Peter told him. "I just need you to get here, there's a few things I need to talk about."

Sensing eyes on him, Peter looked back toward the Doctor and saw that he was keeping a unnervingly close eye on him. Guessing he wasn't done with his questions, Peter hastily added, "do me a favour, park a few streets away. Crane Street will do."

"Okay, I'm heading out now. I'll be fifteen minutes tops."

Hanging up the phone, Peter knew firstly, however, logistics had to be addressed.

"Prime Minister, I've sent for people to come and pick you and your aid up." He told Harriet. "But I have to get back to the base immediately, so I've arranged my own transportation."

"You're leaving, lieutenant?" She asked, sounding concerned. "And are you sure you're all right, given what happened in the fight?"

"The fight?" Peter asked, frowning.

"You were stabbed, with a knife." She stated, pointing at where the dagger had been plunged into him.

"So I was!" He laughed, putting on what he hoped was a convincing façade. "No, I'm fine. The er, vest did its job. I'm still here."

He watched the Prime Minister, convinced that at any moment she was going to delve deeper, question how the supposed vest could have absorbed the length of an entire dagger and still have been thin enough to fit under his shirt. Or perhaps she might question how he'd caught a speeding crossbow bolt with a single hand and how there wasn't a mark on the said hand now.

Humans weren't that stupid, they didn't dismiss everything they couldn't explain.

"Very well," Harriet said. "I expect I'll see you very soon for the debriefing."

"Yes," Peter breathed, trying to keep the relief off his face. "I expect you will. Goodbye, Prime Minister."

As Peter walked away, Alex approached his employer.

"It's a message from Torchwood." He said, one hand on his handsfree device. "They say they're ready."

Swallowing hard, watching the Doctor celebrating with Rose and her family, Harriet steeled herself.

"Tell the to fire." She ordered.

Nodding, Alex distanced himself from her a little and relayed the message.

"Fire at will."

* * *

Peter had been hoping to make a clean getaway, to go and meet with Stefan and put this whole day behind him. But as he made to leave he realised that he'd left something behind and that, as a result, he couldn't escape a confrontation with the Doctor.

The Time Lord practically beamed at him as Peter came over.

"Well well well, Peter Alexander Argent, you really are full of surprises aren't you?" He said, grinning. "And here's me thinking you were just a soldier."

Peter frowned.

"And what's wrong with being a soldier?" He asked, crossing his arms defensively.

"Nothing," the Doctor said, shrugging. "At least not in the way you carry the title."

"Was that a compliment?"

"As close to one as he can manage, yeah." Rose replied.

"But I mean it though," the Doctor continued. "Instead of blowing them up at the first chance you got, you took the honourable route. Fighting them on their terms because it was the noble thing to do."

"I didn't do it because it was noble," Peter told him. "Avoiding a bloodbath is the priority of any soldier."

"Yes, but not every soldier." The Doctor countered. "Certainly not in the nature of every wolf."

Peter's eyes narrowed as Rose groaned.

"Doctor!" She hissed.

"What?" He said, shrugging. "That's what he is."

"What're you talking about?" Jackie asked, she and Mickey frowning.

"You just can't keep your mouth shut, can you?" Peter growled at the Doctor.

"Never can." He replied, grinning. "And neither can I leave a puzzle unsolved. 'Cause that's what you are Peter, a great big puzzle that I've yet to completely figure out."

"Well I'm glad I'm such a source of amusement for you, Doctor. However, I only came over here to collect my jacket from Miss Tyler."

Realising she was still holding Peter's uniformed UNIT jacket, Rose silently passed it over to him when he held out his hand for it, and tried to avoid his gaze as he took it back.

But Peter wasn't allowed to go just yet.

Whether he was ignorant of the lieutenant's growing irritation or just ignoring it, the Doctor grabbed hold of the hand Peter had used to take back his jacket and held it up for inspection. Specifically, he was staring at the ring on the middle finger.

It was a silver band - which, for Rose, put to bed any ideas of silver bullets - with elegant carvings etched into the metalwork, leading up to a brilliant blue circular shaped stone imbedded in the centre. As it caught the light of the sun it shimmered in a very peculiar manner, as though there was movement within the stone itself.

"Actually," the Doctor muttered quietly, still staring at the ring. "I think I've just solved it."

"Well good for you. Can I have my hand back now?" Peter asked, fighting to remain calm.

"Right, sorry." He replied, letting go of Peter's hand. "It's just that I -"

"Whatever it is, I don't want to know." Peter cut in, taking a step back. "I'm done, I'm walking away."

As he moved to leave the Doctor stepped forward and took hold of his arm, suddenly looking very serious.

"Yes but -"

"Doctor, I have been up for over twenty four hours now. I've watched my commanding officer be reduced to a pile of bones right in front of me. I've had two billion lives in my hands, and gone up against an alien warrior with a rather painful result." Peter told him, drawing in a breath. "And to top it all, I've had you and your companion sniffing around things that really don't concern you."

"But if I could -" The Doctor began.

"Do not push me over the edge, Doctor." Peter warned as he shook himself free. "Or those Sycorax are going to be nothing in comparison."

Walking away, he paused as he passed Rose. "Miss Tyler,"

"Y-yes." She stuttered. Was she going to get it in the neck too?

"Good luck dealing with him. Goodness knows I wouldn't want to." Peter told her, his expression softening slightly, before turning to Jackie and Mickey. "Missus Tyler, and Rickey, was it?"

"Mickey," Mickey replied, glaring at Rose and the Doctor who were looking as though they were about to burst out laughing. "Mickey Smith."

"Mister Smith." Peter acknowledged before walking away, heading down the underpass that led to the connecting streets and disappearing from sight.

"Oh, I should really go after him." The Doctor muttered, bouncing on his toes as though on the verge of following Peter.

"No, I think you were right," Rose told him. "He's best left alone."

"That was before I knew exactly what he is, and, more importantly, who he is."

"What do you..."

Rose trailed off as, from a nearby vantage point, a huge bright green beam of energy shot up into the sky. It was soon followed by another, coming from a different part of the city, and then another, and another until there were five of them. Coming together in the sky, they formed one colossal beam which flew up into the highest reaches of the Earth's atmosphere.

It struck the very heart of the Sycorax ship, tearing the rocky structure apart in a matter of seconds, leaving nothing intact bigger than a pebble.

"What is that?" Rose gasped as she saw the bright orange light of the explosion seep through the overcast sky. "What's happening?"

"That was murder." The Doctor growled, glaring at the Prime Minister.

"That was defence." Harriet replied calmly. "It's adapted from alien technology. A ship that fell to Earth ten years ago."

"But they were leaving." He told her, marching over.

"You said so yourself, Doctor, they'd go back to the stars and tell others about the Earth. I'm sorry, Doctor, but you're not here all the time. You come and go. It happened today. Mister Llewellyn and the major, they were murdered. They died right in front of me while you were sleeping. In which case we have to defend ourselves."

"Britain's Golden Age." The Doctor muttered.

"It comes with a price." Harriet told him.

"I gave them the wrong warning." He said, his temper rising by the second. "I should've told them to run as fast as they can, run and hide because the monsters are coming. The human race."

"Those are the people I represent. I did it on their behalf."

"Then I should have stopped you."

"What does that make you, Doctor?" Harriet asked. "Another alien threat?"

"Don't challenge me, Harriet Jones, because I'm a completely new man." He shouted back. "I could bring down your Government with a single word."

"You're the most remarkable man I've ever met," Harriet replied, unfazed. "But I don't think you're quite capable of that."

"No, you're right." He admitted. "Not a single word, just six."

"I don't think so."

"Six words."

"Stop it!" She ordered.

"Six." The Doctor insisted.

Venturing over to Alex, he removed the handsfree device from the man's ear and leaned in, whispering to him, "don't you think she looks tired?"

Glaring one last time at Harriet, the Doctor then began walking down towards the underpass with Rose, Mickey, and Jackie all following him.

"What did he say?" Harriet asked, rushing over to Alex.

"Oh, well, nothing, really." He insisted.

"What did he say?" She asked again, sounding panicked.

"Nothing. I don't know." Alex told her as she ran back a little in the Doctor's direction.

"Doctor! Doctor, what did you? What was that?" She called after him. "What did he say? What did you say, Doctor? Doctor!"

But the Doctor kept on walking, disappearing around the corner with his companions.

Defeated, Harriet hung her head. "I'm sorry."


	13. Chapter 13

Witnessing the destruction of the Sycorax ship from the corner of Crane Street, Peter knew exactly who was responsible for such a devastating attack. Torchwood had once again lived up to their fearsome but grudgingly admirable effectiveness.

Still, he felt annoyed that the Sycorax had effectively all been shot in the back, especially after both he and the Doctor had given them the chance to leave.

Catching his attention, however, was the guttural roar of a 5.4 Litre Modular Supercharged V8 engine.

Peter knew the noise anywhere because it was the sound of his prized all black 2005 Ford Mustang GT. He'd only bought it in the spring but it was one of only two possessions he truly cared about. He had never been much of a mechanic but, for this car, he'd spent hours learning how to get the best performance out of its 300 break horsepower and how to get around the temperamentally of its high performance components.

Rarely would he let Stefan drive it, and would wince the entire journey as he watched his friend grind his way through the 6-speed manual gearbox. But seeing both him and his GT emerge from around the corner only brought a huge smile to his face.

"So," he greeted casually as Stefan jumped out of the car and raced over to him. "How's your day been?"

"Not funny, really really not funny." Stefan scalded, not hesitating for a second in clamping his arms around his best friend. It was an embrace Peter gladly returned.

But Stefan didn't stay mad for long. Soon both men had burst into laughter, just grateful that the other was safe and sound again.

"I take it the fireworks were Torchwood?" Peter asked as they parted, his expression stiffening.

"Kensington was ranting about them, yeah. Whoever they are." Stefan replied, indicating his earpiece. "Everyone's just glad you let us know you were all down before it happened."

"Good, so everyone's okay then?"

"Yeah, everyone's great. Just glad it's all over." Stefan reassured, his eyes narrowing as he studied his friend more closely. "You okay? You look as though you've been in a fight."

Peter's hair was even more ruffled than usual, whilst his face and most of his uniform was covered in dust and grit. His tie was missing and there was a large tear in the side of his shirt. There were no abrasions of course. Stefan knew that Peter healed quickly enough for even the most major of injuries to disappear within minutes, if not seconds.

"I kinda have," Peter admitted.

"I take it you won?"

"More of a joint victory. But yeah, I was on the winning side."

"Were you hurt?" Stefan asked, pointing down at the tear in Peter's shirt.

"I healed."

Stefan frowned. Something was bothering Peter. He was acting as though he was still wounded, as though the whole affair had rattled him. In fact to look at him, knowing him as he did, Stefan thought he might actually start to cry.

"What is it? What's wrong?" He asked, resting a hand on his friend's shoulder. "Peter, you can tell me."

Finally back in the presence of someone he could trust, Peter allowed the fear he'd been hiding behind his mask of emotions to emerge.

"I nearly blew it today. I got stabbed, with a dagger." He admitted, swallowing hard. "In front of everyone."

Stefan's eyes widened.

"Did the Prime Minister see it?" He gasped.

"Yeah," Peter nodded. "But she didn't see me heal."

"But you walked away from her, after she saw the knife go in?" He asked, rubbing the side of his head with obvious worry. "Please tell me you gave her some sort of excuse?"

"A stab proof vest."

"Okay, good we can work with that." Stefan reassured, looking somewhat relieved. "We can avoid putting it in the official report and just convince her that most of what happened up there has to be kept under wraps. A soldier wearing a stab proof vest isn't hard to explain, not to a politician."

"It wasn't me who told her I was wearing one though." Peter told him, his voice shaking slightly.

"Then who did?"

Before Peter could answer he saw Stefan turn his gaze towards the end of the street and looked back over his shoulder to see that the pyjama cladded Doctor was walking towards them.

"Oh god," he breathed, preparing himself.

"What is it?" Stefan asked. "Who is he?"

Peter didn't answer him, instead he watched with a mixture of fear and a growing sense of anger as the tall and lanky, floppy haired man came over to them, an uncommonly large grin on his face.

"Hello there!" He greeted cheerfully.

"Can we help you, sir?" Stefan asked with minimal politeness.

"Nope, don't think you can, but it's all right. I already know Peter, we've both just come down from that great big alien ship that's just been in the sky."

It only took a moment for Stefan to put two and two together.

"The Doctor?" He asked. "You're the Doctor?"

"Hello," the Doctor greeted, waving the hand he'd just recently grown back. "That's me."

Glancing at Peter and seeing that his friend was visibly shrinking away from the Time Lord, Stefan felt hostility begin to rise up.

"Well, thank you for your help today," he told the Doctor as calmly as he could. "But I'm sure you've got places to go, wherever and whenever they are."

"Oh, a whole universe!" The Doctor cried. "Not seen any of it yet. Well, not with this face I haven't."

"Right," Stefan nodded, taking a step back towards the parked GT, nudging Peter back with him. "Good luck with that."

"Of course, Earth is full of surprises too." The Doctor continued, following them. "Not just humans running around it, are there?"

"You don't have to tell us, look at what we do for a living."

"In fact, there's every chance you could be the only human on the street for all you know."

Stefan didn't flinch as he continued to edge himself and Peter back towards the car.

"Yeah, could be." He agreed dismissively. "Anyway, we've got to go, so -"

"I'm curious, do you know what species Peter is?"

Stefan's expression went from a somewhat put on smile to a cold defensive scowl in the blink of an eye.

"Doctor, I really don't know what your talking about, but it is getting rather annoying now. We both have work to get back to and your unique sense of humour isn't the best thing for right now."

The Doctor smiled, beaming at Stefan as though the sergeant had just proven a point.

"Knew you had to be special, given how hard Peter fought for you up there." He said. "But then again, how many people do you tell that you're a shape shifting wolf from the deepest reaches of outer space?"

Hearing Peter's breath hitch and seeing his friend's eyes bulge with fear, Stefan very nearly marched over to the Time Lord to give him a good clobbering. It was Peter's biggest fear to be found out and the Doctor was treating it as though it was all some big game.

"Leave," he growled, his hand instead resting on his sheathed gun. "Now."

"I know you know what he is." The Doctor continued, not making it obvious whether he was genuinely aware of the danger of winding up two armed soldiers or not. "I'm just curious to know if you know what specific species he is."

"Why!?" Peter suddenly snapped, his temper, fuelled by his fear, at boiling point now.

"Peter, don't." Stefan urged.

"Why is it that you are incapable of leaving me alone?" Peter continued, ignoring him. "Why do you have to ask about what I am!?"

"Because you don't know."

Any argument or retaliation got stuck in Peter's throat and, though no tears fell, his eyes began to flicker with traces of a yellowish glow.

"Eyes," Stefan softly whispered, turning his back on the Doctor and putting himself between him and his friend, resting a reassuring hand on Peter's shoulder.

In a matter of seconds the flickering had stopped and Peter had calmed down again.

Sensing it was safe for him to do so, the Doctor carefully stepped up to them, so that he was now only a step or two away. Within striking distance, he was reminded of when he saw Stefan's thunderous face turn his way.

"You came here, to Earth, twenty one years ago," he told Peter gently. "All on your own, with no knowledge of where you'd come from or even what species you were. You couldn't have been more than a few months old. Crash landed somewhere in Kent, going on your accent. Raised by the people who found you, I'll bet. Met a friend when you were just a child, who somewhere along the line you either told or showed him what you are."

"How do... How can you possibly know all of that?" Peter whispered, sounding on the verge of tears again.

"I didn't know, I saw." The Doctor replied. "Hiding what you are and protecting those who do know with such ferocity, the fear I saw when you thought you'd slipped up. Yes, you know what you can do, but you don't know what you are."

"And I suppose you do?" Peter asked, his tone once again marred with anger.

"Yes, as it happens. You see, like humans, wolves are universal and come in all shapes and sizes. Sorting them into species and planets of origin... It gets tricky, they do share a lot of common traits. But it's not impossible."

"You don't have listen to this." Stefan whispered.

"Oh no, he's going to tell me." Peter growled back, glaring at the Doctor. "After everything I've been put through today, I deserve some answers. So come on Doctor, do tell."

Smiling, the Doctor drew in a deep breath.

"Senses and reflexes, high body temperature, your healing, they are all, as I said, fairly common among wolves. The difference is your eyes."

"My eyes?"

"The ease of which their true colour emerges makes it obvious you don't need a full moon to change into your other form. You and the wolf aren't separate entities, you're one and the same."

"I'm not a werewolf, if that's what you're implying." Peter muttered.

"Far from it," the Doctor chuckled. "Which leaves only a few possibilities. To get beyond them, I had to look beyond the wolf, and to you."

"And what did you see?"

"Two things, just two." He replied. "And the biggest clue of the two, your ring."

"My ring?" Peter asked, sounding as though he was about to laugh.

"It was sent with you, wasn't it? A silver band and a very rare type of blue moonstone, am I right?"

"They have blue moonstone on Earth, Doctor."

"But see the distinctive circular lines within the stone?" The Doctor said, pointing. "Symbolises a full moon. You only get it on a ring like that when it's come from deep within the Crescent Mountains of Volantis."

Staring at the ring for himself, Peter did see the curved rings with the surface of the moonstone. Of course, he'd noticed them before, but he'd never thought them significant.

"Okay," he said, looking back up at the Doctor with growing impatience. "Where's that?"

"Your home planet."

"Which is?"

The Doctor didn't reply, instead he stood there smiling at him as though he wanted Peter to figure it out for himself.

Not the smartest of decisions, perhaps.

Eyes bursting into their brilliant golden-yellow colour, an actual growl escaped from Peter's throat. "Doctor, I've been looking for answers since I was eight years old, from the moment I found out I wasn't human. If you know -"

"Vegeta." The Doctor said suddenly.

"What?"

"You're from Vegeta. That's the name of your home planet."

"And my species?" Peter asked.

"Saiyan. It means 'noble wolf' in many languages."

"Really?"

"Yes, a small but very proud and well respected species. Cultured, very sophisticated... Oh, and Vegeta itself!"

"You've been there?"

"Nope, never." He replied, grinning broadly. "But the stories you hear..."

"Oh," Peter said, deflating.

"I do know where it is though."

"So they have space travel? Well they have to, given me being here?" Peter questioned, suddenly sounding hopeful.

"It's limited. They established contact with a neighbouring planet about forty years ago, but that's really it." The Doctor said, wincing. "Saiyans aren't big travellers. Like any kind of wolf, they like to keep to their own territory. Occasionally a few will venture out to Atria for diplomatic and trade purposes, most of the time using Atrian ships provided for them. But very very short distance, we're talking the Earth to the Moon here. Makes me wonder Peter, it really does. 'Cause your a long way from home."

"Yeah," he said quietly, drawing in a deep breath, his eyes cast downwards. "Guess I am."

"Peter -" Stefan began, sounding sympathetic.

"No, I wanted to know." He told him, putting on a brave face as he turned to face the Doctor and held out his hand. "And now I do. Thank you, Doctor. It's filled up a few holes."

"But not all of them?" The Doctor asked as he shook his hand.

Peter shrugged and shook his head.

"No, but I don't think I ever will."

"No, perhaps not." The Doctor replied quietly.

"Goodbye Doctor."

With a nod and a small smile, Peter left the Time Lord and went with Stefan over to the parked GT. Physically and emotionally drained, he didn't accept the keys off his friend, choosing instead to head over to the passenger's side.

"Unless of course you went there?" The Doctor asked him, just as he was opening the door.

For a moment Peter stood there, car door held open, as the words sunk in.

"What?" He eventually asked, slamming the car door shut again and returning to the Doctor.

"You could always go back, travel to Vegeta." He replied, shrugging.

"And how am I suppose to get there?"

"Well, you could always... I mean, if you wanted to," the Doctor said, pausing. "Come with me."

"In your TARDIS?" Peter asked, his eyebrow arching. "Why?"

"Because it's probably the easiest way, and -"

"No, why are you offering to take me? I've been nothing short of hostile to you and your companion."

"Only because you wanted to get on with saving the world." The Doctor countered.

"I didn't save the world, you did. Me, Miss Tyler, UNIT, as ever, we follow in your wake." Peter told him.

"Well today I followed in yours, Peter Argent." He replied. "And I only take the best. So, what do you say? Wanna see where you come from?"

Peter's mouth opened and closed a few times without any words coming out.

"I... Well, I..." He tried to say.

"I know, I know." The Doctor told him. "You have a job and friends and a life here. A human life. A human life full of... human things. Hard to make such a choice on the spot, so... The Powell Estate, heard of it?"

"No, but I can find it." He said, still trying to absorb what was being said.

"Good, I expect Rose will be there right now, no doubt tucking into nut loaf."

Turning on his heel, the Doctor began making his way back up the street.

"Doctor." Peter called after him, suddenly losing his voice, however, when the Time Lord looked back. "I can't... I mean, it's not... I..."

"He'll consider it." Stefan spoke up.

"No," Peter told him, looking his way. "I can't just -"

"He'll consider it." Stefan said again, this time with insistence in his tone as he stared back.

Peter didn't argue back, he couldn't.

With a nod to Stefan and a final pursuading glance sent Peter's way, the Doctor turned and left the way he'd come.

Peter, exhausted and with his mind racing, could do nothing more than climb into his car and allow himself to be driven away.


	14. Chapter 14

The TARDIS' colossal wardrobe held every imaginable garment from almost every era of every world in the universe.

But it was rare for the Doctor to make use of such a collection. Over the years he'd grown use to creating a singular signature look for each of his regenerations.

Howard's stripy pyjamas and a dressing gown full of fruit, however, wasn't what he'd had in mind.

For a moment he considered a fancy looking period costume, but quickly decided it looked something a bit too much like something his old friend Casanova would wear, and returned it to its place on the spiralling railing it had hung from.

Having told Rose she'd love his new outfit just as much as she'd grow to love his new face, the pressure was on the Doctor to deliver. He needed something that was the perfect balance of style and flare. He wanted to knock Rose off her feet.

That was when he spotted it. The perfect outfit.

It was a brown pinstripe suit and a long dun coloured coat. With a little more searching he managed to find a smarter looking shirt and tie. To complete the look, he brushed the dust off a classic pair of cream All Star Converse sneakers he'd picked up from the mid 50's.

Finally he appraised his look in the mirror, taking in as well, for the first time, his new face.

Younger, taller, thinner. There was much more hair this time - though it was disappointingly not ginger. Certainly, he looked much better than Casanova. Yes, he could work with this face and was certain Rose would love him no less for it.

He tried his facial muscles one more time and checked his new teeth, rolling his tongue over them a few times.

"Molto Bene," he said to himself, smiling. "Here we go again."

Entering the console room, the Doctor proceeded to return the TARDIS back to the Powell Estate, parking just below the building containing Jackie's flat.

Taking a deep breath, knowing it was the moment of truth, he ventured outside and towards the looming tower block, his long coat flapping in the cold London wind like a cape.

Christmas dinner in the Tyler's flat was well underway by the time he arrived.

As he shut the front door behind him, the Doctor saw Rose turn her head and look his way. He suddenly felt nervous, both of his hearts beating furiously against his chest. What was she going to think?

To his great relief, Rose greeted him with the warmest and most brilliant smile. All of the worries that she did not like the new outfit quickly evaporated from his head. Beaming back at her, he joined Rose and her family at the table for the magnificent meal Jackie had put on.

* * *

It was the feeling of the car slowing down that had woken Peter.

He hadn't fully realised how exhausted he was until he'd allowed himself to sink into the soft leather of his seat, and neither the sound of the GT's 300 mechanical horses nor the feel of twenty five thousand pounds' worth of American engineering had been able to rouse him.

Now that he was awake, Peter's senses slowly returned to him.

His head was resting against the window and he could feel the coolness of the glass on the side of his head. Immediately, his ears picked up on the sound of the car's radio. Specifically, it was BBC London's 94.9 FM station, which at the moment was in the middle of it's hourly news broadcast.

"And our main headline this Christmas Day," the presenter announced. "Government forces have confirmed that the alien vessel that was dominating the skies of London for most of the morning is no longer a threat."

Opening his eyes and lifting his head off of the window - his neck was quite stiff from having slept so awkwardly positioned - Peter realised that they were in an underground carpark.

Fairly small for a car park, it was square in shape with room only for around two dozen parking spaces. Unsurprisingly, given what day it was, they were nearly all being used. The artificial lighting hung down from the concrete roof, illuminating the previous parked cars within it in a cold and metallic glow. Directly opposite the entrance and exit was a set of red metal doors, which led into the building above.

It wasn't even midday yet and London was caught in a bright blue, frosty haze that always would come with a perfect winter day.

"You must have been tired," Stefan said, noticing Peter was awake as he manoeuvred the car into one of the few remaining spaces. "I must have short shifted the gears at least three times and you didn't wake once to pull that face you do when I damage your car."

"I don't have a face!" Peter countered, frowning.

"Really? So the wincing and 'I'm going to throw you out of the car look' every time I drive this thing is just a nervous twitch is it?"

Peter didn't have the energy to argue back, managing only a hint of a smile in response to Stefan's grinning face.

"Where are we?" He asked instead, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and yawning.

"Your place."

"What!?" Peter gasped, shooting upright and looking around at the now obviously familiar car park that sat below the block of flats he lived in. "Why aren't we back at the Tower?"

"Don't worry, I called it in." Stefan reassured, turning off the engine and unclipping his seatbelt. "Told them you were drained and needed some time away from work. Given everything that's happened, they were fine with it."

"Oh my god," Peter groaned, running his hands over his face as he sat back in his seat. "Did today really, actually happen?"

"You tell me, I spent most of it on a rooftop. At least I think I did."

Secretly, Peter was relieved that he didn't have to go back into work and face the prospect of having to go over the events of what happened again and again. No doubt the tedious process of putting together an official report was already underway and would be waiting for him when he returned.

If he returned...

He'd almost completely forgotten about the Doctor's offer. To go back to the planet he was from, meet his own species for the first time. There could even be a family, his real family waiting for him there.

Unlike so many others, Stefan could read Peter like a book.

"What the Doctor said," he told Peter carefully. "We need to talk about it."

"I'm not going." Peter said, too quickly.

"You can't just decide not to go on the spot."

"And I can't just decide to go on the spot either!"

"Peter, look," Stefan sighed, mustering more seriousness in his face than Peter had seen in a long time. "This is a choice I'd never thought you'd have to make and, stay or go, you're going have to leave something behind."

"So how do I choose?" Peter asked, shaking his head.

"Only you know the answer to that one mate." His friend told him sadly. "But Emma is upstairs, we'll get your parents on the phone, and together we'll sit down and discuss this. Like the family we are."

Emma Amell was young, pretty, and blond with a motherly smile and a sense of wisdom that stretched beyond her years. She and Stefan had married the previous spring but she had known both him and Peter since their very first day of primary school.

A freshly qualified nurse, she worked at the NHS run Royal Hope Hospital situated in the very heart of the capital and loved every second of it, even if most of the time she worked long hours for little pay.

Right now, however, work was the last thing on her mind.

It was protocol that nothing should be leaked to the world outside of UNIT's headquarters, especially to a civilian, but when a colossal spaceship appears over most of the capital, there wasn't much to be done about keeping the secret contained.

Slowly and scattered throughout the early hours of the morning, phone calls had come through to Emma about the situation at hand. As Stefan's next of kin she'd been informed that his life had, momentarily, looked to be in danger, and that Peter - whom had also listed her as his emergency contact - had been missing in action for the latter part of the crisis.

This had all come from both men's unit, whom she all knew personally, and though they'd told her as much as they had been allowed to - as much as they knew themselves, she suspected - it was of little comfort to know she could only sit by the phone and wait for further news.

Growing up knowing one of her best friends was an alien had in someways prepared her for the choice of career both Peter and Stefan had taken. The nature of UNIT's work was at first surprising of course, but now Emma saw it like any other place of military employment. One that dealt with aliens, not terrorists, but employment nevertheless.

To her relief though, Stefan had eventually called her to let her know it was over, that the ship had been destroyed, and that he and Peter were okay and she should meet them at Peter's flat.

Unlike the red brick Victorian terraced house she and Stefan lived in, located on the outskirts of the city, Peter's residence was the top floor of a modern block of flats in Chalk Farm. His bedroom had views of the railway lines leading into Euston Station. The place had only been built twenty years ago but already there were cracks appearing, maybe because of the vibrations of the trains.

When Peter had first moved in, the combination of the grinding wheels and his sensitive ears had been the cause of many sleepless nights. But soon he'd gotten used to it, in fact he quite liked it now. He wouldn't have been able to afford the flat if it had been anywhere more expensive.

But when Peter and Stefan had arrived at the flat, however, Emma saw immediately that 'okay' only extended to their physical welfare.

Peter was in a disheveled state, clearly exhausted, and looked to have the weight of the world resting on his shoulders. After accepting a warm hug from Emma - she never fussed over him either, preferring to let him come out with whatever was bothering him in his own time - he'd all but collapsed onto the sofa.

It had taken Stefan less than half an hour to explain all that had happened during the day, from the moment the Sycorax had hijacked Guinevere One's signal to the Doctor's offer.

"So what do I do?" Peter asked them both. "Do I go or stay?"

He looked as though his heart was being torn in two, and Emma knew the thought of leaving everything and everyone he'd ever known was killing him as much as the idea of missing out on the chance to visit the world he was born into was.

"I know it's hard, impossible even, to comprehend such a choice." She said to him softly, sitting down next to him and rubbing his arm soothingly. "On the one hand, Earth was never meant to be your home. But on the other, you've made it into one."

"I just wish I knew what to do." Peter whispered, "Or have more time to decide."

"What makes you think you don't?" Emma asked. "The Doctor didn't ask for an answer today, did he?"

"No, he left the invitation open." Stefan explained, standing in front of them with his arms folded and a worried crease lingering on his forehead.

"Then why don't you take sometime to decide?" Emma suggested, looking back to Peter.

"Because I'm scared I'll miss my chance." He replied. "Even a Time Lord won't wait around forever."

He'd been staring at his ring a lot since arriving home and was now twisting it around his finger. It was a habit of his whenever rare thoughts of whomever gave it him lingered on his mind.

"Then go."

Stefan looked as surprised as Peter by his wife's sudden decisiveness. Gawking, he looked between them both to see who would react first.

"W-what?" Peter ventured, recoiling from Emma a little.

"If you're scared on missing the opportunity to go, then you go." She told him. "Because as long as I've know you, Peter, you've never hesitated on anything and lived to regret it."

"But if I leave then my life here... well, it's over." Peter said, standing up and rounding on both of his friends. "My career, maybe my freedom if and when UNIT find out what I am, and more importantly... I leave you two behind, and my parents."

They weren't strictly his parents, of course, but they had found Peter when his ship - only just big enough to fit him in it at three months old - had crash landed in the middle of the woods that lay behind their house and raised him from that moment onwards as though he were their own.

He'd not called them yet, but he suspected they'd be telling him exactly what Stefan and Emma were telling him right now. The choice was his and his alone.

"I know, and part of me doesn't want you to go." Emma said. "But neither do I want to hold you back from going."

"This may be your only chance, mate." Stefan added, nodding.

"And if I don't like it, if I can't adjust to life on Vegeta?" Peter asked. "What if it's been too long for me to have a family or a home there?"

"Then the Doctor will bring you straight back here, and in time for the new year." Stefan said, smirking. "I'll make sure he knows the consequences of just dropping you off and leaving you to it."

"And if I like it? What if it's everything I ever hoped it would be?"

"Then you stay there and get back the life you were always meant to have," Emma said, talking him by the hand. "And know that you go with our love."

"Besides, Kensington would love you even more." Stefan said. "He'd finally get that promotion he's always wanted."

"Stefan!" Emma hissed.

But Peter was laughing, forgetting for the moment the choice he'd soon have to make.

"Yeah, I guess he would. Speaking of work, how drained did you say I was?"

"Enough to warrant a weeks leave." Stefan admitted. "Might have told them you were slightly traumatised by what happened up there."

"Gee thanks," he replied half jokingly. "Now what they going to think of me?"

"That you're not made of the iron you pretend you are." Emma chipped in. "But, before any space and time related decisions are going to be made, you both need to decide whether you want a shower or food first, because you both stink. Peter, you especially. You look like you've been rolling around on the floor?"

"Well..." Peter began.

"Food sounds good, what do you say?" Stefan asked him.

"Yeah, food." He chuckled. "Definitely food."

"Typical," Emma muttered, rolling her eyes at the pair.

* * *

Despite the Doctor's suspicions there was no nut loaf, rather an impressive turkey with all the trimmings. There were even crackers to pull open as Tim Phillips' 'Song for Ten' blasted out of the radio. "Oh, that's yours." He said, having lost the mini tug of war with Rose.

"It's pink!" Rose laughed, pulling out the paper hat tucked inside the cracker and putting it on. "Mum, it should be yours."

The television was still turned on, muted for the moment, and was tuned into the BBC news channel. It was being given little attention presently, that was until Rose spotted a very familiar face appear on the screen. "Look, it's Harriet Jones." She said, pointing.

As Mickey turned off the radio and hit the un-mute button on the television remote, everyone gathered around it to hear what was being said. Slipping on a pair of rectangular glasses, the Doctor crouched down in front of it and watched with interest.

Harriet Jones was once again addressing a press conference. But unlike the last time, she was looking as though she wasn't enjoying the attention, getting more and more flustered as the questioning continued.

"Prime Minister, is it true you are no longer fit to be in position?" One reporter asked her.

"No. Now, can we talk about other things?" She replied, sounding quite insistent.

"Is it true you're unfit for office?" Another journalist persisted.

"Look, there is nothing wrong with my health." Harriet replied, shaking her head. "I don't know where these stories are coming from. And a vote of no confidence is completely unjustified."

"Are you going to resign?"

"On today of all days, I'm fine. Look at me, I'm fine. I look fine, I feel fine."

The telephone rang and Jackie left to answer it. A moment later, however, she was back.

"It's Beth. She says go and look outside." She said, phone still in her hand.

"Why?" Rose asked.

"I don't know, just go outside and look." Jackie replied, putting the phone down and grabbing her coat. "Come on, shift!"


	15. Chapter 15

The entire Powell Estate had been blanketed in a thin layer of white. Even the TARDIS had a thin layer upon it, only hints of its blue paint visible now. From above, flakes fell from the above in a gentle and twirling motion as streaks of light cris-crossed the sky.

"Oh, it's beautiful." Rose gasped as they all emerged out into the wintery night, joining the rest of the residents who'd ventured out to enjoy the stunning night. "What are they, meteors?"

"It's the spaceship breaking up in the atmosphere." The Doctor explained, a solemn hint in his voice. "This isn't snow, it's ash."

"Okay, not so beautiful."

"This is a brand new planet Earth." He told her. "No denying the existence of aliens now. Everyone saw it. Everything's new."

"And what about you?" Rose asked, fiddling for a moment with the sleeve of her coat, not quite able to make eye contact with him. "What are you going to do next?"

"Well, back to the TARDIS. Same old life."

"On your own?"

"Why?" The Doctor asked, frowning. "Don't you want to come?"

"Well, yeah." Rose replied.

"Do you, though?"

"Yeah!" She said with much more certainty.

"I just thought, because I changed." The Doctor said, shrugging and looking down at his feet.

"Yeah, I thought, because you changed you might not want me anymore." Rose told him.

"Oh, I'd love you to come," he said, smiling.

"Okay." She replied, smiling back.

"You're never going to stay, are you?" Mickey asked, sounding disappointed.

"There's just so much out there." She said, turning back to look at him. "So much to see. I've got to."

"Yeah." He agreed, though reluctantly.

"Well, I reckon you're mad, the pair of you. It's like you go looking for trouble." Jackie tutted.

"Trouble's just the bits in-between." The Doctor told her, bouncing over. "It's all waiting out there, Jackie, and it's brand new to me. All those planets, and creatures and horizons. I haven't seem them yet! Not with these eyes."

Returning to Rose, he beamed down at his companion and extend out his hand towards her. "And it is going to be fantastic."

"That hand of yours still gives me the creeps." Rose winced, pointing at the regrown limb.

The Doctor merely grinned and wiggled his fingers at her until she decided to take hold of it anyway.

It was then that Rose saw a look of disappointment spread across the Time Lord's face. Had she done something wrong? Had he suddenly changed his mind about continuing to travel with her?

No, somehow she sensed this had nothing to do with their relationship. Something else was bothering him. "Doctor?" She asked. "What is it?"

"I just thought, well..." He began. "I was hoping someone would have turned up by now."

"Peter?" Rose guessed. "You went after him, what happened?"

The Doctor still hadn't told her anything more about the UNIT lieutenant than she had already seen for herself, as though he didn't feel obligated to or perhaps wouldn't divulge further. Rose knew he knew more than he was letting on. She had watched the Doctor debate and argue with himself before finally he'd decided his curiosity was too great to ignore and had run after Peter to find out answers only he himself knew the questions to.

"I made him an offer."

"What sort of offer?" Rose asked.

"One I must be out of my mind to even be considering." A familiar voice replied.

Stood not even ten meters away from them was Peter Argent.

Dressed casually in a dark shirt, jeans, and a black leather jacket, he still didn't like an alien. Then again, neither did the Doctor, and Rose guessed that Peter had a lot of practising of blending in over the years.

But clothes and a Kentish dialect couldn't completely conceal his true nature from someone who knew the truth. Peter couldn't hide his eyes from the world, eyes that shone a little too brightly to be human, cutting through the darkness like two grey lanterns. Even without their yellow glow, they were the eyes of a wolf.

"You found us okay then?" The Doctor casually asked, though he was unable to keep the grin off of his face.

"I track aliens for a living," Peter replied, smiling. "Time Lord or human, I'll always find you."

Nodding, the Doctor walked the short distance between himself and the Saiyan, dropping his voice a little so that further conversation wouldn't be overheard.

"I take it you've made up your mind?" He asked.

"Well, thanks to Stefan's complete overprotectiveness, I've been officially classed as traumatised because of what happen today and have been given a weeks leave of absence."

"A week, is that it?"

"I said traumatised, not dead." Peter replied, rolling his eyes. "But it does give me a bit of free time."

"Yes, it does." The Doctor agreed.

"And, even without a time machine, I figured it might be long enough for me to decide." Peter continued.

"To be a human or a Saiyan. That's the question, isn't it?"

"One I don't know the answer to yet." He said, looking at the Doctor with a steadfast gaze. "But I'm ready to find out. If you'll still have me?"

"Peter Argent, it would be my honour." The Doctor told him. "Although... Don't you think you're traveling a little light?"

Given he was potentially about to move his entire life to a planet millions and millions of miles away, Peter didn't have anything with him. It was in stark contrast of Rose, who's amount of luggage only seemed able to increase with every passing home visit.

"You think I'm going tonight?" Peter asked, frowning.

"Well," the Doctor said, shrugging. "Aren't you?"

"No, and I don't think your companion or her mother would be happy if you suggested to leave now. It's Christmas don't you know?"

"Hadn't really noticed." The Doctor laughed. "Okay, tomorrow then?"

Suddenly looking downcast, Peter's gaze turned to his feet for a moment as he shifted uncomfortably.

"Doctor, I said a week would be enough without a time machine. But you can travel in time." He said, looking back up. "I can't just up and leave. There are people here that I love and care about who I consider family."

"Are you changing -" The Doctor began.

"I'm not changing my mind, no." Peter reassured. "But they deserve a proper goodbye, face to face. One last Christmas together. I owe it to them."

From out of his jacket pocket, he pulled out a folded piece of paper and handed it over to the Doctor.

"An address?" He guessed.

"Maidstone, I grew up there and my adoptive parents still live there. It was always the plan to go and spend Christmas with them. I'm driving up tonight with Stefan and Emma, she's his wife."

"Right, and apart from Stefan, do they all know?"

"Yeah, they know what I am, and they know I'm thinking of leaving." Peter told him. "So, is three days okay?"

The Doctor shrugged.

"Ten seconds to me if I wanted it to be."

"No, something tells me you're staying for the holidays too." Peter replied, nodding in the direction of Rose, Mickey, and Jackie.

"Well, it is Christmas don't you know?" The Doctor laughed, also looking in the direction of his companion.

"Yeah, I noticed." Peter agreed, turning to leave. "Anyway, I better get going, traffic and motorways and so on. I'll see you in three days."

"Just one thing before you go." The Doctor said, catching hold of his arm.

"I figured there might be a catch." Peter sighed. "Go on then, what is it?"

"Just a small one. Come and say hello to them."

Peter visibly stiffened as he looked over at Rose, Mickey, and Jackie. His eyes suddenly grew fearful as he took a slight step backwards.

"Why?" He asked. "They already know who I am."

"But not what you are." The Doctor said. "You can't hide it forever."

"On this world I have to. My parents only know through raising me, and Stefan and Emma because they saw me the first time I turned."

"Yet they haven't ever run from you, have they?"

"No, but -"

"I promise you Rose won't either, or Mickey or Jackie. You can trust them."

"And can I trust you, Doctor?" Peter asked. "You said I was a puzzle to you, well, I don't see people as puzzles. I either trust them or I don't. So can I trust you?"

"Would you be here if you didn't?" The Doctor asked.

"No," he admitted. "I guess I wouldn't."

Pretending she'd not been trying to listen in, Rose deliberately looked away for a moment as the Doctor came back over with Peter, who she thought looked very nervous.

"Hello again," she greeted, smiling at Peter.

"Hi, I bet you figured you'd seen the last of me?"

"The Doctor's never one to let things lie, he's like a dog with a..." She trailed off, only realising until it was too late the significance of her words. "Oh, sorry. I didn't mean..."

"It's fine," Peter chuckled.

"So, er... Why are you on Earth? I mean, if you're not... If you're a... What are you?"

"It's a long story. I'm a Saiyan from a planet called Vegeta, apparently." Peter replied, eyeing the Doctor.

"Wait, you're an alien!?" Mickey suddenly gasped, he and Jackie staring at Peter anew, as though he had two heads.

"Yes," he replied as though it was common knowledge, turning to the Doctor and Rose. "You didn't tell them?"

"It's your secret to tell," the Doctor replied, shrugging.

For the first time since they'd met, there was no hostility in Peter's eyes as he looked at the two time travellers, no defence or distrust. Instead, Peter was seeing them as friends, not merely allies.

"Right," he said with a slight wince as he looked back towards Mickey and Jackie. "Where to begin?"

"What about the eyes? I loved them." Rose said.

"Really? What about the whole leaping off of the TARDIS, or the catching a bolt with a single hand?" He asked. "The sword fighting, the healing myself?"

Rose was shaking her head, smiling at him. "No?" He sighed. "Okay,"

With a quick glance over his shoulder to make sure no one else was watching, Peter dipped his head down for a moment so that his eyes were concealed. When he looked back up, they were once again glowing bright yellow.

"Well, that's..." Jackie tried to say, whilst Mickey was only able to gawk.

"Wait until you see them when I'm a wolf." Peter chuckled, his eyes becoming grey again.

"You're sticking around then?" Rose asked, taken aback. "Are you coming with us in the TARDIS?"

"Until I decide which planet I want to live on." He replied, picking up on the surprise in her tone. "Is that okay, Miss Tyler?"

"Only if you stop calling me Miss Tyler." She told him, laughing, and held out her hand for him to shake. "It's Rose."

"Rose it is then," he replied, taking her hand.

"You should enjoy it Rose," Jackie said, tutting. "You don't get many men these days who behave so proper, do you?"

"Mum!" Rose hissed, blushing. She knew the exact meaning behind her mother's words and wanted any ideas of the notion put to bed immediately.

Peter was also looking as though he'd picked up on Jackie's suggestive tone and had put on a rather forced smile.

"Right, well I better be off." He said. "I'll see you in a few days."

"Great, see you then." Rose replied.

Not immediately leaving, however, Peter turned to the Doctor.

"I was just wondering though, before I went." He said. "You said you knew what I was because of two things."

"Yes, your ring." The Doctor replied, nodding in the direction of his hand.

"What was the second thing?"

The Doctor smiled and pointed down at Peter's left upper arm.

"Your tattoo."

"What?" Peter laughed. "I got this four years ago. What's it possibly got to do with being a Saiyan?"

"The design stumped me for a while, but then I worked out what it actually was."

"It's just something I drew." Peter insisted.

"From a memory perhaps? An old memory you can't quite make sense of?" The Doctor asked.

"Yes, how did -"

"Saiyanial growth rings, representing an infant growing into a child and then into an adult. They would have been carved into the wood of your cot, I expect."

"No way." Peter said, shaking his head. "I was able to remember that? No, there is no way that is true. Is it true?"

"You're the one who can hear heartbeats, you tell me?"

"Okay. If you're so clever, figuring that out. Then tell me," Peter laughed, pointing at the starry sky. "Which way's Vegeta?"

"Er, that way." The Doctor said, pointing, before moving his hand a little to the right. "No, hold on. That way."

"That way?" Peter asked, gazing up and pointing in the same direction.

"You ready for it?"

Staring in the direction of his home planet, Peter grinned.

"The better question is, is it ready for me?"


End file.
